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HISTORY  PRIMERS 

Edited  by  John  Richard  Green 


GEOGRAPHY 


SIR  GEORGE  GROVE  F.R.G.S. 


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Distort)  primers.     Edited  by  J.  R.  Green. 
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GEOGRAPHY 


SIR  GEORGE   GROVE,  F.R.G.S. 


WITH   MAPS    AND    DIAGRAMS. 


MACMILLAN    AND    CO. 

AND    NEW    YORK 

1889. 

[The  Right  of  Translation  and  Reproduction  is  Reserved.1] 


% 


CONTENTS. 


Maps  and  Map-making  :— What  is  a  map?  6;  can  you  read 
it  ?  9  ;  latitude  and  longitude  13  ;  projection  19  ;  globular  pro- 
jection 21  ;  Mercator's  chart  23 ;  reading  a  map  27 ;  the 
Tropics  31 ;  the  Zones  32 ;  mariner's  compass  33 ;  Time  36 ; 
angle  of  ninety  degrees  39. 

The  Earth  : — Figure  of  the  earth  41 ;  arrangement  of  land  and 
water  44  ;  structure  of  Old  World  46  ;  of  New  World  50  ;  com- 
parison of  the  two  55  ;  superiority  of  Europe  59  ;  Australia  60  ; 
North  America  61. 

The  Ocean  : — Its  extent  62 ;  the  Atlantic  63  ;  the  Pacific  65 ;  the 
Indian  66 ;  the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  67  ;  winds  68  ;  currents  69  ; 
Gulf  Stream  71 ;  the  tides  73  ;  bottom  of  ocean  74  ;  its  heat  78  ; 
its  saltness  79. 

Features  of  the  Earth  :— Continents  80 ;  islands  8r  ;  capes 
83  ;  mountains  84  ;  their  names  91  ;  volcanoes  93  ;  valleys  95  ; 
plains  95 ;  peninsulas  98  ;  rivers  99  ;  deltas  103  ;  names  of 
rivers  107;  lakes  109;  inland  seas  n  1  ;  waterpartings  112; 
watershed  114;  basin  115;  coast  116;  gulf  117;  strait  117; 
icebergs  119. 

Appendix  :— Measures  of  length  124;  knots  in  a  degree  of  longi- 
tude in  various  latitudes  i£5  ;  scales  and  symbols  of  Ordnance 
maps  126. 


First  Edition,  January,   1877. 
Reprinted,  Oct.  1877;    1879,  1884,   1886,   1889. 


HISTORY    PRIMERS. 


GEOGRAPHY. 


i.  Geography  is  from  two  Greek  words,  yn,  ge,  the 
earth,  and  ypafyt),  graphe,  description ;  and  that  is  what 
k  is,  a  description  of  the  earth ;  not  of  what  is  below 
the  surface,  for  that  is  geology,  but  of  all  that  is  to 
be  seen  on  the  face  of  it — the  land,  the  sea,  the 
mountains,  and  valleys,  and  rivers,  and  lakes,  and 
all  the  rest  that  meets  the  eye.  Nor  of  these  only  in 
themselves,  but  an  account  of  them  as  they  are  con- 
cerned with  the  inhabitants  of  the  world.  It  is  some- 
times said  that  there  are  three  kinds  of  geography — 
mathematical,  physical,  and  political — of  which  the 
first  has  to  do  with  the  shape  and  size  of  the  world,  and 
the  making  of  maps  ;  the  second  with  the  form  of  the 
ground  and  its  influence  on  man  ;  the  third  with  the 
divisions  and  history  of  nations  and  peoples.  But  all 
three  are  embraced  in  the  word  Geography,  and 
therefore  a  Primer  of  Geography  must  have  to 
do  with  them  all.  Nor  do  I  see  how  they  can  well 
be  separated ;  for  neither  the  form  of  the  globe, 
nor  the  arrangement  of  the  land  and  water,  nor  the 
divisions  which  nations  have  made  between  themselves, 
are  of  any  moment  except  as  they  concern  us ;  and 
the  three  are  so  connected  and  mixed  up  together  that 


GEOGRAPHY. 


no  right  view  can  be  taken  of  one  without  the  others 
in  some  way  interposing. 

2.  This  is  a  little  book,  and  therefore  all  our  de- 
scriptions must  be  short.  Long  accounts  of  the 
countries  with  full  particulars  about  them  must  be 
left  for  another  time.  I  shall  not  give  you  any  par- 
ticulars of  the  history  of  Geography.  What  the  ancients 
knew  of  it  you  will  find  in  the  Primer  of  Ancient  Geo- 
graphy. Nor  shall  we  do  more  than  glance  at  the  pro- 
cesses by  which  the  earth  became  what  it  is,  how  the 
mountains  were  lifted  up  and  the  valleys  scooped  out ; 
for  that  is  done  to  perfection  in  the  Primer  of  Physical 
Geography.  And  we  shall  touch  as  little  as  possible 
on  Astronomy,  because  you  will  find  that  in  the 
Primer  and  Elementary  Lessons  on  that  science.  But 
I  shall  try  to  give  you  a  general  knowledge  of  what 
the  world  is  and  what  its  different  parts  are  like, 
and  so  prepare  you  for  a  longer  and  fuller  account 
elsewhere.     I  shall  shew  you  : — 

I.  What  Maps  are,  why  they  are  wanted,  and  how 
they  are  made. 

II.  What  are  the  general  structure  and  arrangement 
of  the  Earth  and  Ocean. 

III.  Some  particulars  of  the  features  of  Land  and 
Water. 

3.  And  first  about 

MAPS  AND   MAP-MAKING. 

When  you  sit  down  to  a  game  of  chess  or  draughts, 
you  have  the  board  under  your  eyes,  and  can  see  and 
touch  every  part  of  it.  But  suppose  the  board  were 
ten  miles  square,  and  you  had  still  to  play  the  game, 
what  would  you  do  ?  You  would  have  a  small  repre- 
sentation or  map  of  it  made,  the  size  of  a  sheet  of 


WHAT  IS  A    MAP? 


paper,  which  you  could  keep  before  you  and  mark 
all  the  moves  upon. 

4-  Suppose  again  you  had  been  the  commanding 
officer  at  some  great  battle,  and  wished  to  explain  the 
movements  of  the  troops  to  a  friend,  to  shew  how  this 
farmhouse  was  taken,  that  clump  of  trees  occupied, 
and  that  road  defended,  in  short  how  the  battle  went 
from  beginning  to  end;  what  would  you  do?  You 
would  draw  it  all  out  small  on  a  piece  of  paper,  in  the 
same  proportions,  and  with  the  places  and  things  in 
their  positions  with  regard  to  each  other,  just  as  it 
would  look  if  you  were  hanging  over  it  in  a  balloon ;  in 
other  words,  you  would  make  a  map  of  it,  and  then 
you  could  easily  shew  your  friend  where  the  regiments 
stood,  and  how  the  batteries  were  placed,  and  in 
short  could  go  through  all  the  successive  operations 
of  the  day,  and  make  them  plain  to  him,  plainer  than 
they  were  in  the  battle  itself,  where  only  one  part  could 
be  seen  at  a  time. 

5.  Suppose  once  more  that  you  had  to  walk  from 
London  to  Brighton,  and  did  not  know  the  way,  and 
had  no  one  to  shew  it  you.  You  would  be  utterly 
puzzled.  You  would  not  know  whether  you  were 
walking  towards  Brighton  or  Reading  or  Chatham. 
You  could  not  see  the  town  in  the  distance,  and 
every  hedge  or  house  or  ridge  would  shut  out  the 
view  before  you,  and  quite  bewilder  you.  But  if 
I  brought  you  a  map  with  everything  marked  upon 
it,  you  could  then  draw  a  straight  line  to  Brighton, 
you  could  see  where  the  line  cut  the  places  on  the 
map,  and  so  by  degrees  find  your  way  along,  field 
by  field,  and  village  by  village,  keeping  this  place 
to  the  right  and  that  to  the  left,  till  you  arrived  at 
your  journey's  end. 


GEOGRAPHY. 


6.  Now  here  are  three  cases  in  which  without  a 
map  you  could  not  get  on  at  all.  No  dcubt  they  are 
never  likely  to  happen.  But  they  are  good  examples 
of  what  does  happen  every  day.  If  all  men  were 
fixed  for  life  in  the  places  they  were  born  in,  and 
never  travelled,  and  had  no  concern  with  people 
of  other  places  and  countries,  maps  would  be  of 
little  use.  But  we  do  travel,  we  have  business  all 
over  the  world,  friends  in  India,  friends  in  America ; 
ships  sail  about  the  ocean  where  for  days  and  weeks 
they  see  no  land,  and  have  no  apparent  means  of 
finding  their  way;  armies  go  into  an  enemy's  country, 
where  it  is  important  not  only  to  find  their  way  but  to 
know  the  distance  exactly,  to  an  hour's  march  or  less ; 
and  for  all  these  things  maps  are  indispensable,  and  so 
the  science  of  Geography  has  grown  up,  and  the  method 
of  making  maps,  and  of  understanding  them 
when  made — of  representing  on  paper  the  surface  of 
the  earth,  with  what  may  be  called  its  features,  all  the 
indentations  of  the  coast,  the  bends  of  the  rivers,  the 
extent  of  the  forests,  the  lie  of  the  mountains,  as  well 
as  all  the  cities,  villages,  roads,  railways,  canals,  and  so 
on,  in  the  same  positions  and  proportions  as  they  are 
in  reality,  only  far  smaller,  just  as  they  would  appear 
if  you  could  look  at  the  world  from  a  distance. 

7.  Not  a  picture,  that  is  a  different  thing — different 
in  nature  and  different  in  object.  A  map  i6  not  made 
to  please,  so  much  as  to  instruct.  It  aims  to  show 
the  shapes  and  positions  of  the  features  of  the  earth, 
not  as  they  rise  before  the  eye  in  all  the  beauties  of  the 
sun  and  air,  and  in  their  vertical,  upright  forms,  but  as 
they  are  stretched  out  horizontally  at  one's  feet.  Sup- 
pose you  saw  an  ant  running  about  the  table-cloth  at 
dessert  among  the  dishes  and  decanters.     It  sees  the 


CAN   YOU  READ  A   MAP? 


things  on  each  side  of  it,  but  it  can  have  no  know- 
ledge of  their  shapes,  and  the  way  they  are  arranged  ; 
it  is  too  small  for  the  purpose.  If  it  could  raise 
itself  to  the  same  height  above  the  table  that  your 
eye  is,  and  have  the  same  power  of  sight,  it  would 
see  the  whole  at  a  glance,  and  be  able  to  make  its 
journeys  without  loss  of  time  or  trouble.  Now  the 
table-cloth  is  the  country,  the  ant  is  you,  and  the 
view  is  a  map. 

8.  But  are  you  sure  that  when  you  have  got  the  map 
you  will  be  able  to  read  it  ?  There  was  a  time  when 
you  could  not  read  a  printed  book,  before  you  knew 
the  letters,  and  how  to  put  them  into  words,  and  words 
into  sentences.  Oh  but,  you  say,  a  map  is  a  different 
thing.  I  can  understand  it  at  a  glance.  Can  you  ?  Shew 
a  savage,  even  an  intelligent  savage,  a  photograph  or 
portrait,  and  you  would  think  it  impossible  that  he 
should  not  know  that  it  represents  a  man  or  a  woman. 
But  the  savage  will  not  have  the  least  idea  what  it 
means ;  he  will  not  even  know  whether  it  is  upside 
down  or  not ;  he  will  see  no  more  in  it  than  he 
would  on  a  blank  bit  of  paper ;  the  picture  which  to 
you  is  so  plain  to  him  says  nothing,  and  I  am  very 
much  mistaken  if  the  map  says  very  much  more  to  you. 
At  any  rate  it  will  not  say  all  that  it  has  to  say.  For 
instance,  what  are  the  lines  drawn  up  and  down  across 
it,  and  the  figures  at  the  ends  of  those  lines.  Can  you 
point  out  to  me  the  watershed  or  basins  of  the  rivers  ? 
Do  you  even  know  the  meaning  of  the  words  ?  Can 
you  distinguish  roads  from  rivers,  or  either  of  them 
from  canals  ?  or  could  you  trace  with  your  finger  a 
line  over  the  country  which  should  keep  the  same  level 
everywhere  ?  Could  you  shew  me  the  shortest  road 
across  the  ocean  between  two  places,  say  between 


GEOGRAPHY. 


Cape  Horn  and  Canton  ?  Probably  not ;  but  until  you 
can  do  this,  and  a  great  deal  more,  you  can  only  read 
the  map  imperfectly. 

9.  It  is  with  the  ground-plan  of  the  earth's  surface 
that  geography  has  to  do,  and  to  profit  by  it  we  must 
know  how  maps  are  made.  Now  we  know  from  our 
Printer  of  Astronomy  that  the  earth  is  a  very  large 
ball  about  8,000  miles  through,  the  outside  of  which 
is  formed  of  the  land  and  water  that  make  up 
the  various  countries.  They  form  the  skin  of  the 
earth  as  the  peel  forms  the  skin  of  an  orange ;  and 
just  as  you  can  take  an  orange,  and  mark  a  line  right 
round  it,  and  come  back  to  the  same  point  again,  so 
you  may  set  out  from  London,  or  any  other  place, 
and  go  always  in  one  straight  direction,  and  at  last, 
after  many  months,  come  round  to  London  again, 
which  you  could  not  do  if  the  earth  were  anything 
else  but  a  great  ball. 

10.  Now  as  the  earth  is  a  ball  it  seems  plain  that  the 
map  of  the  earth  should  be  a  ball  too.  And  so  it  may 
be ;  we  have  them,  and  we  call  them  globes,  and 
for  getting  a  general  idea  of  the  world  and  the  countries 
upon  it  nothing  can  be  better  than  a  globe.  But  there 
is  one  drawback,  that  if  it  were  made  sufficiently  large 
to  shew  the  details  of  the  map,  it  would  be  quite  un- 
manageable, too  cumbrous  for  use,  and  also  too  expen- 
sive. The  largest  globes  that  we  see  in  libraries  and 
museums  are  yet  so  small  that  nothing  can  be  given 
upon  them  but  the  general  features  of  the  countries — 
few  details  of  rivers  or  roads  or  mountains  or  towns,  or 
other  important  things  ;  with  the  palm  of  your  hand 
you  may  cover  the  whole  of  England  ;  a  great  city  is 
no  bigger  than  a  pin's  head,  and  your  house  and 
garden  are  invisible.     An  attempt  was  once  made  to 


NORTH,   SOUTH,    EAST,   AND    WEST.  II 

make  a  really  large  globe,  which  was  shewn  in 
Leicester  Square,  London,  under  the  name  of  Wyld's 
Great  Globe, — but  though  its  advantages  were  great 
its  disadvantages  were  greater,  and  it  was  soon  given 
up. 

ii.  Our  maps  then  must  be  flat.  But  to  get  a  flat 
representation  of  any  large  portion  of  a  curved  surface 
is  simply  impossible.  Take  a  piece  of  paper  and 
attempt  to  fit  it  to  the  surface  of  a  ball  or  globe,  and 
it  cannot  be  done,  there  will  be  always  a  number  of 
creases  in  the  paper;  and  though  the  larger  the  globe 
and  the  smaller  the  piece  of  paper  the  smaller  the 
creases  will  be,  yet  some  will  always  remain  at  the 
edges  to  shew  that  the  plane  surface  cannot  answer 
exactly  to  the  curved  one.  A  fiat  map  therefore 
can  never  be  absolutely  correct;  it  will  at  the 
best  only  come  near  the  truth. 

12.  To  see  how  the  difficulty  is  got  over,  we  will 
begin  by  considering  a  spherical  map,  or  what  is 
generally  called  a  terrestrial  globe,  since  it  is  the 
foundation  of  all  map-making.  And  before  we  go 
any  farther  we  must  fix  on  a  few  words,  so  that 
we  may  understand  exactly  what  we  mean,  and  have 
no  confusion.  In  Geography  we  do  not  say  Top  and 
Bottom,  Right  and  Left ;  but  we  call  them  north, 
south,  east,  and  west.  When  you  are  in  front  of 
a  globe  or  map,  the  top  is  the  north,  the  bottom  is 
the  south,  the  right  hand  is  the  east,  the  left  hand 
is  the  west.  Also,  as  the  earth  is  a  ball  spinning 
round  from  West  to  East,  as  if  on  a  pole  or  axle-tree 
nin  through  it,  it  has  been  agreed  to  call  the  extreme 
north  spot  of  the  earth  the  North  Pole,  and  the 
opposite  one  the  South  Pole.  If  we  lived  in 
Australia,  we  should  then  look  to  the  South  Pole  in 


GEOGRAPHY. 


the  same  way  that  in  this  country  we  look  to  the 
North;  the  left  hand  would  be  the  East,  and  the 
right  hand  the  West.  Again,  in  this  Primer  when  we 
say  the  Earth,  we  mean  the  actual  world  itself ;  but 
when  we  say  the  Globe,  we  mean  the  representation 
of  it  of  which  the  following  is  a  picture  : — 


Fig.  i. 

13.  There  is  the  globe  then,  or  rather  one  side  of  it, 
one  half,  a  Hemi-sphere ;  and  two  questions  at  once 
occur  to  us — What  are  all  those  lines  drawn  up  and 
down  and  across  it  ?  and  How  were  all  the  countries 
and  places  got  into  their  proper  places  just  as  they  are 
on  the  earth  itself?  Two  better  questions  it  would  be 
impossible  to  ask,  or  two  that  depend  more  strictly  on 
each  other.  The  lines  are  there  solely  for  the 
purpose  of  fixing  the  places,  and  the  places 
could  not  be  fixed  without  the  lines.    The  lines 


MERIDIANS  AND  PARALLELS.  13 

which  run  from  top  to  bottom — North  Pole  to  South 
Pole — are  lines  or  meridians  of  longitude ;  you 
see  that  there  are  36  of  them,  18  in  each  hemi- 
sphere, and  they  divide  the  whole  circumference 
of  the  globe  into  36  equal  parts,  each  of  which 
again  is  subdivided  into  10  degrees,  or  360  degrees 
in  all.  The  lines  which  run  round  the  globe 
from  west  to  east,  at  right  angles  to  the  meridians 
of  longitude,  are  called  parallels  of  latitude,  and 
of  these  you  see  there  are  17.  The  middle  one, 
which  goes  round  the  world  at  its  largest  part,  is  called 
the  Equator,  and  there  are  8  to  the  north  and  8  to 
the  south  of  it,  dividing  the  space  between  the 
Equator  and  each  Pole  into  9  parts ;  and  these 
also  are  each  of  10  degrees.  They  are  numbered 
from  1  to  90  upwards  and  from  1  to  90  downwards, 
and  those  above  the  Equator  are  called  parallels 
of  north  latitude,  those  below  it,  parallels  of  south 
latitude. 

14.  The  meridians  of  longitude  are  all  the  same 
size.  Each  one  goes  through  both  North  Pole  and 
South  Pole,  and  therefore  runs  right  round  the 
globe  ;  and  each  is  called  a  Great  Circle  because 
it  is  the  largest  circle  that  can  be  drawn  on  the 
globe.  Thus  there  is  no  one  meridian  larger  than  the 
rest  to  form  a  natural  starting-place,  as  the  Equator 
does  for  the  parallels,  and  therefore  a  special  one 
has  to  be  chosen  to  count  from — ten,  twenty,  thirty, 
to  the  right,  and  ten,  twenty,  thirty,  to  the  left,  till  they 
meet  at  180.  The  English  choose  that  which  runs 
through  Greenwich  Observatory,  and  call  those  east  of 
it  in  East  longitude,  those  west  of  it  in  West  longitude. 
The  French  take  a  line  passing  through  Paris  ;  others 
have  taken  Ferro,  one  of  the  Canary  islands.     It  its 


14  GEOGRAPHY. 

quite  immaterial  which  is  chosen,  as  long  as  we  know 
it ;  since  all  the  lines  are  alike,  and  all  that  is  wanted 
is  one  to  start  from.  But  in  the  case  of  the  latitude 
all  agree  to  take  the  Equator  as  the  starting-point,  as 
being  the  largest  of  all  the  parallels,  and  standing 
naturally  in  the  middle  between  those  north  and  those 
south  of  it.  For  if  you  think  a  little,  and  if  you  look 
at  the  picture, 


you  will  see  that  the  circles  round  the  globe,  which 
we  call  parallels  of  latitude,  must  inevitably  get  less 
in  length  as  they  are  farther  off  from  the  Equator, 
until  at  last  they  come  to  nothing  at  the  Poles.  There 
is  only  one  Great  Circle  among  the  whole  17  parallels, 
and  that  one  is  the  Equator. 

15.  Now  the  Equator  is  divided  into  360  degrees 
(written  ° ),  and  the  meridians  into  360  degrees  also; 


KNOTS,   DEGREES,   MINUTES.  15 

and  each  degree  into  60  minutes  (written  ' ),  and 
each  minute  into  60  seconds  (written " ),  which 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  minutes  and  seconds  of 
an  hour,  though  they  are  called  by  the  same  names 
and  divided  by  sixties.  And  thus  320  19'  27"  means 
32  degrees,  19  minutes,  27  seconds.  Further,  each 
minute,  each  sixtieth  part  of  a  degree  of  the  equator 
or  the  meridians,  is  a  mile — not  a  common  English 
mile,  but  a  geographical  or  nautical  mile,  or  knot. 
Reckonings  in  navigation  are  usually  made  by  geogra- 
phical miles,  and  to  avoid  confusion  we  will  always 
call  them  knots.  They  are  longer  than  our  common 
English  statute  miles  as  2,028  is  longer  than  1,760,  or 
as  69  to  60  nearly  ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  book  you 
will  find  a  table  of  comparison  between  the  two. 

16.  Now  we  will  go  a  step  farther.  Each  meridian 
is  divided  into  360  degrees,  and  each  degree  into 
60  minutes,  or  21,600  in  all,  and  each  of  those  minutes 
is  a  knot,  for  all  the  meridians  are  Great  Circles  of 
the  same  length  ;  and  the  Equator  also  is  divided 
into  360  degrees  and  21,600  minutes,  and  each  minute 
is  a  knot  there  too,  because  the  Equator  is  a  Great 
Circle  also.  But  remember  it  is  the  only  Great  Circle 
among  all  the  parallels.  From  the  nature  of  the  case 
each  parallel  is  smaller  than  the  last,  and  therefore 
the  value  of  the  degrees  and  minutes  into  which  they 
are  divided — that  is  to  say,  the  degrees  and  minutes 
of  longitude  which  are  counted  along  them — gets 
smaller  too,  till,  at  the  Pole,  it  comes  to  nothing.  At 
Greenwich  (N.  lat.  5 1°  28'  40"),  the  value  of  a  degree  of 
longitude  is  only  about  37  knots  instead  of  60.  You 
must  please  to  think  over  this,  as  between  the  degrees 
and  parallels  and  meridians  it  is  a  little  puzzling.  As 
long  as  you  measure  by  degrees,  minutes,  and  seconds, 


GEOGRAPHY. 


there  is  no  difficulty.  Two  meridians  that  were  10 
degrees  apart  at  the  Equator  are  10  degrees  apart  at 
any  spot  between  the  Equator  and  the  Pole,  the  pro- 
portion is  always  exactly  the  same.  Some  watches 
have  a  hole  in  the'  case  with  a  set  of  figures  round 
it,  and  though  the  hole  is  only  half  the  size  of  the 
inside  face,  yet  the  time  is  always  the  same  on 
both.  When  it  is  20  minutes  to  5  on  the  large  set 
of  figures  it  is  20  minutes  to  5  on  the  small  one, 
though  so  much  smaller  ;  and  just  so  the  distance 
between  the  meridians  on  the  globe  decreases  in  exact 
proportion,  and  degrees  are  always  of  the  same 
relative  value,  which  is  a  great  convenience  for 
measuring  off.  But  when  you  begin  to  translate  the 
degrees  into  knots  you  find  that  the  minutes  of  longi- 
tude are  continually  growing  smaller  as  they  approach 
the  Poles,  or,  in  other  words,  that  each  degree  of 
longitude  contains  fewer  knots.  At  the  end  of  the 
book  you  will  find  a  table  for  this  also. 

17.  By  the  help  of  this  apparatus  of  cross  lines  the 
position  of  any  place  can  be  fixed  on  the  globe  and 
described  with  the  greatest  accuracy.  Thus  Genoa  is 
44°  25'  N.  lat.  ;  that  is,  44  degrees  and  2  5-6oths  of  a 
degree,  or  25  minutes,  in  North  latitude,  or  north 
of  the  Equator ;  and  it  is  also  8°  58'  E.  long.,  that  is, 
8  degrees  58  minutes  East  longitude,  or  east  of 
the  meridian  of  Greenwich.  San  Francisco  again 
is  37°  49'  North  latitude,  and  1220  8'  West  longitude 
— west  of  Greenwich,  and  so  on. 

18.  And  then  the  convenience  of  it.  You  hear  of  a 
wreck  taking  place  and  the  people  suffering  dreadful 
misery  on  some  small  island,  as  the  crew  and 
passengers  of  the  Strathmore  did  on  the  Crozet  islands 
in  1875.     The  papers  are  full  of  it,  and  of  course  you 


HOW  THE  MAP  IS  MADE. 


want  to  see  where  it  was.  You  might  search  the  map 
of  the  world  all  over  and  the  name  would  escape  you. 
But  if  I  tell  you  that  it  is  in  S.  lat.  460  16',  and  E.  long. 
480  27',  you  can  drop  upon  it  in  a  moment. 

19.  But  there  is  another  service  which  these  cross 
lines  can  perform.  Put  a  man  suddenly  down  at  any 
spot  on  the  earth,  furnished  with  the  proper  instruments 
and  able  to  use  them,  and  he  will  be  able  to  tell  you 
the  latitude  and  longitude  of  that  spot.  He  will 
make  certain  observations  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars, 
and  will  look  at  his  chronometer  or  clock,  which  keeps 
the  same  time  as  at  Greenwich,  and  he  will  tell  you 
how  many  degrees  and  parts  of  a  degree  he  is  north 
or  south  of  the  Equator,  and  how  many  degrees  and 
parts  of  a  degree  he  is  east  or  west  of  the  meridian  of 
Greenwich  ;  having  got  which  knowledge  the  cross 
lines  enable  him  to  fix  the  spot  on  the  map  with  accu- 
racy. In  the  same  way,  ships  can  find  out  where  they 
are  on  the  ocean  when  out  of  sight  of  land;  they 
take  observations  which  give  them  their  position  east 
or  west  of  the  meridian  of  Greenwich,  and  north  or 
south  of  the  Equator.  The  captain  measures  off  these 
two  dimensions  on  his  map,  and  then  he  can  see 
whether  he  is  sailing  in  his  right  course  or  not,  and 
can  act  accordingly.  What  these  "  observations  "  are, 
and  how  taken,  you  will  find  explained  in  the  Primer 
of  Astronomy,  at  pages  108-114. 

20.  Thus  what  I  said  before  about  the  globe  (§13) 
is  quite  true.  The  lines  are  there  for  the  purpose  of 
fixing  the  places,  and  the  places  could  not  be  fixed 
without  the  lines. 

21.  We  are  now  able  to  get  a  rough  general  idea  of 
the  way  in  which  a  globe  or  spherical  map  of  the 
earth  might  be  made,  supposing  you  were  going  to 


16  GEOGRAPHY. 


make  the  first  one  that  ever  was.  Having  got  your 
globe,  and  having  marked  the  North  and  South  Poles 
on  it,  and  drawn  the  Equator  midway  between  them, 
and  the  parallels  of  latitude  and  meridians  of  longi- 
tude, and  numbered  them,  you  would  be  in  a  position 
to  begin  to  put  down  the  information  brought  by  navi- 
gators and  travellers,  as  it  arrived.  For  instance,  some 
one  who  had  been  sailing  to  South  America  might 
report  that  he  had  seen  four  cities  on  the  coast : — 

Pernarabuco.  .     S.  Lat  8°    3'  W.  Long.  340  54' 

Bahia                              „  120  42'                „  38°  42' 

Rio  Janeiro  .  .         „  220  53'                ,,  43°  12' 

Buenos  Ayres                 ,,  340  30^                „  5  8°  24' 

These  four  places  you  could  at  once  put  down  on 
your  globe,  and  they  would  form  a  beginning  for 
South  America.  The  same  sailor,  or  some  one  else, 
would  give  you  the  line  of  the  coast  between  these 
places,  with  the  latitudes  and  longitudes  of  the  principal 
points ;  and  those  too  you  would  put  down.  Next 
week  another  navigator  might  arrive  from  Australia,  or 
a  traveller,  like  Lieutenant  Cameron,  from  the  centre 
of  Africa,  bringing  a  few  points  from  each  j  and  so  by 
degrees  your  map  would  grow  until  the  whole  globe 
became  covered. 

22.  And  this  is  really  how  th»  globe  has  been  made, 
only  it  has  taken  hundreds  of  years  and  thousands 
of  people  to  do  it.  And  it  is  not  yet  complete.  Of 
the  inside  of  Persia  and  of  Australia  much  is  yet  to 
be  known.  Numbers  of  latitudes  and  longitudes  of 
New  Guinea  were  brought  home  by  Captain  Moresby 
in  1873.  Tibet  and  the  other  great  pastoral  countries 
north  of  India  are  very  little  explored ;  and  you  know 
how  many  travellers,  from  Landor  to  Livingstone,  have 
died  in  the  endeavour  to  get  latitudes  and  longitudes 


PROJECTION.  19 


in  the  heart  of  Africa,  and  hew  much  has  been  added  to 
the  map  by  the  Polar  expeditions,  from  Cook,  Ross, 
and  Parry,  to  Payer  and  Nares.  And  there  would  be 
much  to  correct  from  time  to  time.  It  is  not  20 
years  since  the  coast  of  Syria  was  found  to  be  four 
miles  out  in  all  the  maps,  and  the  position  of  Jeru- 
salem was  correctly  fixed  for  the  first  time. 

23.  So  far  for  the  globe.  But  we  have  seen  that  for 
ordinary  use  globes  will  not  do,  we  must  have  flat 
maps  ;  and  the  next  question  is,  how  are  these  to  be 
made  from  the  globe  ?  That  is  to  say,  how  are  the 
cross  lines  to  be  put  down  ?  For  I  cannot  too  often 
remind  you  that  the  cross  lines  are  the  absolute  foun- 
dation of  every  map.  Therefore,  in  making  a  flat  map 
from  the  globe,  the  parallels  of  latitude  and  meri- 
dians of  longitude  are  the  first  things  to  think  of. 
If  we  can  get  them  accurately  drawn  all  the  rest 
will  follow ;  get  the  skeleton  right  and  we  can  easily 
clothe  it  with  flesh,  form,  and  colour.  Now  the 
skeleton  will  never  be  quite  accurate,  for  we  have 
already  seen  that  a  sheet  of  paper  can  never  be  fitted 
to  the  surface  of  a  sphere.  Many  methods  have  been 
tried  of  overcoming  this,  and  though  they  are  only 
a  choice  of  evils,  yet  practically  they  answer  well. 
For  in  all  science  an  error  is  only  an  evil  as  long 
as  its  exact  amount  is  not  known.  When  it  is 
known  it  can  be  allowed  for  and  overcome.  And  if 
we  know  how  far  off  our  parallels  and  meridians  in  the 
flat  map  are  from  being  like  those  on  the  globe,  we 
shall  be  able  to  allow  for  the  mistake. 

24.  First  therefore  we  have  to  transfer  our  meridians 
and  parallels  from  the  sphere  to  the  flat  paper.  Now 
this  transference  is  called  projection — a  pretty  word  : 
it  is  as  if  the  sphere  were  hollow,  made  of  thin  glass, 


GEOGRAPHY. 


and  we  were  seated  inside  it  looking  through,  and  as 
it  were  projecting  the  lines  upon  it  on  to  the  paper 
beyond.  And  indeed,  speaking  roughly,  that  is  the 
principle  on  which  most  projections  are  made — the 
globe  is  supposed  to  be  made  of  glass  and  you  are 
stationed  inside  it  either  at  the  centre,  or  on  the 
side,  or  outside  it  altogether,  close  by,  or  at  an 
immense  distance  off,  and  you  are  supposed  to  look 
through  the  glass  and  to  see  the  meridians  and 
parallels  projected  on  to  a  paper  beyond,  or  on  a  paper 
stretched  between  you  and  the  globe. 

25.  Now  we  have  not  time  to  explain  all  the 
various  ways  in  which  people  have  endeavoured  to 
represent  the  surface  of  the  globe  on  a  flat  paper  :  it 
would  be  very  difficult  to  describe  them  so  that  they 
would  be  understood,  and  if  understood,  it  might 
hardly  be  worth  the  trouble.  We  will  therefore  con- 
fine ourselves  to  the  two  most  commonly  employed. 

26.  The  world  in  hemispheres,  which  is  found  at 
the  beginning  of  most  atlases,  is  drawn  on  what  is 
called  the  globular  projection,  which  was  the  dis- 


Fig-   3- 


THE   GLOBULAR  PROJECTION. 


covery  of  Philippe  de  la  Hire  (1640-17 1 8).  In  this 
you  are  supposed  to  be  standing  outside  the  globe,  at 
a  certain  moderate  *  distance  from  it,  and  to  be  look- 
ing through  at  the  inside  of  the  opposite  half;  and 
the  paper,  or  "  plane  of  projection  "  as  it  is  called,  is 
supposed  to  be  stretched  across  the  half  at  which  you 
are  looking,  like  the  parchment  across  a  kettledrum. 

27.  Here  abc  is  half  of  such  a  hollow  glass  globe, 
with  its  meridians  and  parallels  drawn  upon  it.  g'v* 
the  place  of  your  eye,  and  a  dee  is  the  opening  of  the 
half  *globe,  or  the  plane  of  projection.  I  have  drawn 
the  parallels  on  the  plane  of  projection  as  they  would 
appear  to  your  eye  at  g,  when  looking  at  them  on 
the  inside  of  the  globe  ;  the  meridians  are  not  put  in, 
as  they  would  crowd  the  figure  too  much.  But  when 
both  parallels  and  meridians  are  fully  drawn  on  the 
plane  of  projection,  or  the  parchment  as  we  called  it, 
they  have  this  appearance  : — 


Fig.  4- 

28.  The  meridians  are  all  the  same  distance  apart, 


*  Accurately  stated,  the  distance  of  the  point  of  bight  from  the  sphere 
=  (radius  of  Great  Circle)  X   sin.  450. 


GEOGRAPHY. 


and  so  are  the  parallels  when  measured  along  the 
central  meridian  ;  but  as  they  get  nearer  the  outside  of 
the  map  you  observe  that  the  parallels  become  wider 
apart,  and  therefore  the  map  is  distorted  at  the  edges, 
and  the  countries  have  not  quite  the  same  shape  as 
they  have  on  the  globe.  Still  you  get  on  the  whole  a 
fair  idea  of  the  general  relation  and  proportions  of  all 
the  countries  in  one  half  of  the  surface  of  the  earth. 
For  this  reason,  and  because  the  globular  projection  is 
easy  to  make,  it  has  been  gradually  adopted  for  the 
general  map  of  the  world  in  atlases. 

29.  In  these  maps  the  meridians  and  parallels  are 
curved  lines,  and  therefore  the  shortest  line  between 
any  two  points  on  the  globe  must  be  a  curve  on  the 
map.  In  maps  of  the  land  and  for  use  by  landsmen 
this  is  of  no  great  importance,  because  the  distances 
between  the  various  places  are  not  very  great ;  but  in 
charts  which  are  used  by  seamen  for  working  their 
course  at  sea  it  becomes  a  great  practical  inconvenience. 
A  captain  who  has  to  navigate  his  ship  say  from  Bristol 
to  Charleston  is  naturally  anxious  to  sail  in  the  right 
direction  between  the  two  points.  But  on  the  maps 
we  have  hitherto  described  a  straight  line  is  not  the 
direct  line.  To  be  a  direct  line  it  must  be  a  curve — 
if  you  can  understand  that — because  both  meridians 
and  parallels  are  curved.  The  direct  line  between  two 
places  on  the  same  parallel  or  the  same  meridian 
would  be  easy  to  follow,  as  it  would  be  merely  the 
curve  of  the  parallel  or  the  meridian.  But  suppose 
the  two  places  to  be  many  degrees  apart  both  in 
latitude  and  longitude,  like  Ceylon  and  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope,  you  would  find  that  the  line  to  be 
pursued  was  a  very  complicated  curve,  which  few 
sailors  could  be  expected  to  lay  down  correctly. 


MERCATOR. 


23 


30.  This  difficulty  became  a.  very  serious  one  when 
America  was  discovered  and  long  voyages  began  to  be 
taken,  and  to  meet  it  a  projection  was  invented  by 
a  Flemish  mathematician  called  Mercator,  in  1556, 
and  perfected  by  Edward  Wright,  an  Englishman,  in 
1594,  which  is  not  only  very  clever,  but  has  perfectly 
answered  its  purpose.  In  this  method  you  may  sup- 
pose the  sphere  to  be  enclosed  in  an  upright  cylinder 
or  hollow  roll  of  paper,  with  the  point  of  sight  in  the 
centre  of  the  sphere. 

31.  Here  enrs  is  the  glass 
globe,  with  its  North  and  South 
Poles,  Equator,  and  parallels. 
The  meridians  are  not  drawn 
because  they  would  only  con- 
fuse us.  abed  is  the  roll  of 
paper  wrapped  round  the  globe. 
Now  if  you  suppose  a  small 
bright  light  to  be  placed  at  the 
centre,  it  will  shine  through 
the  globe  and  will  throw  the 
shadows  of  the  parallels  on 
to  the  roll  of  paper,  as  you 
see  them  in  the  diagram — 10 
will  be  close  by,  20  will  be  a 
little  farther  off,  and  30  farther 
off  still.  After  that  the  shadows 
begin  to  spread  very  much,  as 
you  see  ;  and  if  you  compare 
the  distance  between  50  and 
60,  or  60  and  70,  on  the 
globe  and  on  the  paper,  you 
will  see  how  much  they  have  widened  out.     The  dis 


24 


GEOGRAPHY. 


tance  between  70  and  80  would  be  much  more 
than  that  between  60  and  70,  and  the  shadow  of 
90  (that  is,  the  Pole)  would  of  course  go  up  through 
the  end  of  the  roll,  and  never  be  caught  at  all. 

I  have  shewn  you  only  the  upper  hemisphere,  but 
the  lower  one  would  be  exactly  like  it,  reversed. 
As  for  the  meridians,  they  need  no  diagram,  for  if 
you  think  about  it  you  will  see  that  their  shadows  must 
be  equi-distant  straight  lines,  running  straight  up  and 
down  the  roll. 

32.  When  the  roll  is  unwrapt,  supposing  the 
shadows  to  remain  fixed  on  the  paper,  it  will  have 
this  appearence : — 


Fig.  6. 


MERC  A  TOR'S  PROJECTION.  25 

33.  Accordingly  in  a  Mercator's  map  the  size  of  the 
countries  at  the  north  and  south  is  out  of  proportion 
to  those  near  the  Equator.  For  instance,  Iceland 
looks  nearly  as  large  as  Borneo,  and  Greenland  as 
South  America,  though  Iceland  is  only  200  miles  from 
north  to  south,  and  Borneo  nearly  700,  while  Green- 
land is  1,400  miles  and  South  America  about  4,000. 
They  keep  their  shape,  but  are  very  much  too  big,  and 
therefore  you  must  be  on  your  guard  in  a  Mercator's 
map  not  to  be  deceived  by  the  apparent  size  of  countries 
near  the  Poles.  But  still  for  the  sailor's  purposes 
Mercator's  map  is  very  convenient.  North  and  south 
are  always  straight  up  and  down,  and  east  and  west 
straight  across.  All  the  meridians  are  parallel,  and 
all  the  parallels  are  parallel  too.  The  most  ignorant 
sailor  can  lay  down  his  course  without  calculation. 
In  fact  the  invention  of  this  map  has  been  justly 
called  one  of  the  most  remarkable  and  useful  events 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  And  why?  because  it  en- 
ables common  unlearned  people  to  do  easily  and 
correctly  what  only  clever  learned  people  could  have 
done  without  it. 

34.  Hitherto  we  have  spoken  only  of  general  maps, 
in  which  the  whole  world  is  got  on  to  one  or  two 
sheets,  and  where  a  great  distance  like  100  miles  is 
represented  by  half  an  inch  or  an  inch.  But  maps 
are  wanted  for  marching  armies,  selling  properties, 
laying  out  railways,  &c,  and  for  these  great  detail 
is  required ;  not  only  the  general  form  of  the  coast,  or 
the  principal  towns  and  roads,  but  every  cottage  and 
hedge,  and  lane  and  clump,  must  be  exactly  in  its 
place.  Now  for  doing  this  a  different  method  is 
employed  from  that  which  we  have  yet  spoken  of. 
The  latitudes  and  longitudes  of  the  principal  points 


GEOGRAPHY. 


are  found,  and  then  the  smaller  ones  are  filled-in  by 
the  surveyors  by  a  method  called  triangulation, 
because  it  is  done  by  triangles,  which  I  need  not  de- 
scribe to  you.  It  is  also  called  a  trigonometrical 
survey  because  the  triangles  are  calculated  by  a 
branch  of  mathematics  called  trigonometry. 

35.  Here  is  a  bit  of  what  is  called  the  Ordnance 
Survey  of  England,  made  in  this  way,  on  an  inch 
scale,  that  is  a  scale  of  one  inch  to  a  mile,  where 
each  inch  on  the  map  represents  a  mile  on  the  ground, 
half  inch,  half  a  mile,  and  so  on. 


Fig.  7. 


36.  The  scale  is,  you  see,  the  proportion  between 
the  size  of  the  map  and  the  size  of  the  piece  of 
ground  which  it  represents;  a  small  scale  means 
that  the  map  is  small  in  proportion  to  the  ground, 
and  a  large  scale  that  it  is  larger  in  proportion. 


ORDNANCE  MAPS.     SCALE.  27 

Therefore,  in  speaking  of  it,  it  is  as  well  to  name 
the  proportion  itself — the  number  of  times  which 
the  one  will  go  into  the  other.  The  inch  scale 
is  thus  called  -^^  because  there  are  63360  inches  in 
one  statute  mile,  and  a  mile  on  the  map  is  one  sixty- 
three-thousand-three-hundred-and-sixtieth  part  of  a 
mile  on  the  ground  Ordnance  maps  are  made  to 
other  scales,  even  as  large  as  10  feet  6  inches  to  a 
mile,  or  ^th  part  of  the  original  ground.  At  the  end 
of  the  book  you  will  find  a  table  of  the  scales  in  use. 

37.  Maps  of  the  world  or  of  large  countries  do  not 
have  scales  marked  on  them,  for,  as  I  explained,  they 
would  be  incorrect,  except  near  the  centre  of  the 
map.  In  the  hemispheres  (§28)  you  remember  the 
parallels  widen  out  towards  the  outside  of  the  map,  and 
appear  to  be  farther  apart  than  at  their  centre,  though 
they  are  really  parallel.  And  in  Mercatofs  map  (§32) 
the  meridians  are  parallel  instead  of  sloping  together  j 
and  the  parallels,  though  drawn  parallel,  do  really  be- 
come vastly  wider  apart  as  they  near  the  Poles. 

38.  In  a  map  for  use  in  business  or  common  life 
there  must  be  no  such  uncertainties.  On  the  inch 
map  an  inch  must  be  a  mile  exactly,  whether  at  the 
outside  of  the  sheet,  or  in  the  middle,  and  measuring 
either  north  and  south,  or  east  and  west.  But  you 
will  remember  that  in  each  of  the  projections  the 
centre  of  the  map  was  accurate,  and  that  it  was  only 
at  the  outsides,  at  long  distances  from  the  centre, 
that  it  was  distorted.  And  as  a  projection  may  be 
made  with  any  spot  in  the  world  as  its  centre,  and  the 
maps  we  are  speaking  of  do  not  cover  more  than 
a  few  miles  each  way,  there  is  no  practical  difficulty 
in  obtaining  all  the  accuracy  that  is  wanted. 


2S 


GEOGRAPHY. 


39.  I  asked  you  before  if  you  could  read  a  map. 
Like  reading  a  book,  it  is  only  to  be  done  by  practice, 
but  I  can  perhaps  give  you  some  useful  hints. 

(1)  Before  you  begin  get  the  scale  well  into 
your  mind.  A  map  is  not  a  mere  picture,  and  your 
object  in  looking  at  it  is  to  get  information ;  therefore, 
first  of  all,  look  carefully  to  see  how  much  the  scale 
is,  how  many  miles  there  are  to  an  inch,  or  you  will 
have  no  true  sense  of  distance. 

(2)  Next  look  at  the  character  of  the  ground 
and  the  height  of  the  hills.  The  slopes  of  the 
roads,  the  fall  of  the  streams,  the  nature  of  the  lakes 
and  ponds,  all  depend  on  these  things ;  therefore  learn 
to  interpret  them  with  certainty.  Now  the  rise  and 
fall  of  ground  is  shewn  in  two  ways — either  by  dark  or 
light  shading,  according  to  the  slope,  or  by  contours. 


Contours  are   lines  which 
over  the   ground.     Here 


mark  the  same  level  all 
s  a  map  of  a  hill  with 


contours,  each  50  feet  above  or  below  the  other.    Each 
line  is  strictly  level  round  the  hill,  and  is  as  if  a  flood 


CONTOURS. 


20 


had  risen  by  steps  of  50  feet  at  a  time,  and  had  left 
its  mark  at  each  successive  step.  Where  the  contours 
spread  out  the  ground  is  flatter,  and  where  they 
crowd  together  the  ground  is  steep,  and  knowing  that 
they  are  50  feet  below  one  another,  you  can  easily 
tell  the  height  of  any  part  above  or  below  another 
part,  and  therefore  the  slope  of  the  hill.  The 
other  method  is  by  what  are  termed  hachures. 
In    this    method,    the    thicker    the    lines,    and   the 


Fig.  9. 

closer  they  are  together,  the  steeper  is  the  ground; 
and  the  waterpartings  and  crests  of  the  slopes  should 
be  traceable  by  the  junction  of  the  lines  representing 
the  two  slopes.  Each  method  has  its  *advantages  ; 
the  hachures  are  much 'the  more  effective,  and  the 
alterations  of  slope  can  be  beautifully  traced,  but  it  is 
impossible  to  infer  the  actual  height  of  the  inequa- 
lities from  them.     Contours,  on  the  other  hand,  are 


*  A  thoroughly  satisfactory  example  of  the  drawing  and  shading  of 
mountains,  showing  how  far,  even  on  a  very  small  scale,  minute  features 
may  be  brought  out,  is  furnished  by  the  maps  in  the  "  Sketch  of  the 
Mountains  and  River-basins  of  India,"  by  Mr.  Trelawney  Saunders  (Stan- 
ford, 1870).  Another  on  a  larger  scale  by  the  same  geographer  ii  the  map 
of  "Jerusalem,  Ancient  and  Modern,"  in  the  "Historical  Atlas  of  Ancient 
Geography  "  (Murray,  1873). 


30  GEOGRAPHY. 


much  less  striking  to  look  at.  They  do  not  give  the 
look  of  the  ground,  but  they  tell  you  exactly  what  the 
height  and  slope  of  it  are.  Shading  is  sometimes  done 
with  lines  which  look  like  contours,  but  are  not  really 
so  ;  and  this  is  misleading. 

(3)  There  are  many  smaller  signs  which  will  give  in- 
formation if  you  know  how  to  read  them.  In  the 
Ordnance  maps  you  can  tell  whether  a  road  or  rail- 
way is  in  cutting  or  in  embankment ;  that  is  to  say, 
whether  it  is  below  the  surface  of  the  country,  or 
raised  above  it,  since  the  two  are  represented  dif- 
ferently. In  fact  so  complete  are  these  maps  that 
you  can  distinguish  turnpike  roads,  cross  roads,  foot- 
paths, canals,  and  lines  of  telegraph.  (See  the  list  on 
page  126.) 

40.  We  have  been  speaking  of  maps  to  a  tolerably 
large  scale.  A  map  of  a  continent  or  country  is 
necessarily  to  a  smaller  scale,  and  such  full  details  as 
those  just  named  cannot  be  got  in,  but  a  faithful  repre- 
sentation of  the  general  face  of  the  land  ought  to  be 
given  —  the  valleys  and  ravines ;  the  waterpartings ; 
the  watersheds  gradually  scored  deeper  and  deeper 
with  streams ;  the  rise  of  the  plateaus  from  the 
plains,  and  their  flat  tops  ;  the  gradual  or  sudden 
slopes  of  the  hills — we  ought  to  be  able  on  a  good 
map  to  see  such  general  features  of  the  country,  as 
well  as  the  positions  of  the  places.  And  on  such  a 
map  as  that  of  Palestine  in  the  Historical  Atlas  of 
Ancient  Geography,  all  this  is  evident  enough. 

41.  Before  leaving  this  part  of  the  subject  there  are 
one  or  two  other  things  to  mention.  On  looking 
again  at  the  globe  there  are  some  lines  which  we  have 
not  yet  noticed — the  tropics  of  Cancer  and 
Capricorn,  and  the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  circles. 


TROPICS.    POLAR  CIRCLES.  31 

42.  The  Tropics  are  two  parallels  of  latitude- 
Cancer  2 30  28'  north  of  the  Equator,  and  Capricorn 
23 °  28'  south  of  it.  At  every  spot  on  the  belt  of  the 
earth's  surface  between  those  two  parallels,  on  two 
days  in  the  year  the  sun  stands  right  over  head  at  mid- 
day. Below  the  tropic  of  Capricorn,  and  above  that  of 
Cancer,  he  never  stands  right  over-head,  at  any  place, 
on  any  day  in  the  year.  Why  this  is  you  will  find  in 
the  Primer  of  Astronomy.  They  are  called  tropics 
from  a  Greek  word  meaning  to  turn,  because  at  those 
lines  the  sun  seems  to  reach  one  side  of  his  path 
and  turn  back  to  the  other.  The  space  between  them 
is  often  called  "  the  tropics,"  and  a  country  there  is 
called  a  "  tropical  country." 

43.  The  Arctic  and  Antarctic  circles  are  each  the 
same  distance  (230  28')  from  the  North  and  South 
Poles  that  the  tropics  are  from  the  Equator.  The 
Arctic  circle  is  66°  32'  N.,  and  the  Antarctic  one 
66°  32'  S.  lat.  At  every  spot  within  these  there 
is  at  least  one  day  in  the  year  in  which  the  sun 
remains  in  sight  for  the  whole  24  hours,  and  at  least 
one  day  in  which  he  is  out  of  sight  for  the  whole 
24  hours.  Thus  at  the  Arctic  circle,  on  June  21st,  he 
is  visible  for  the  whole  24  hours,  and  on  Dec.  21st 
he  does  not  appear  above  the  horizon  at  all.  At  the 
Pole  he  remains  out  of  sight  below  the  horizon  from 
Sept.  23rd  to  March  21st,  and  from  that  day  till 
Sept.  23rd  again,  he  is  in  sight  both  day  and  night, 
mounting  by  June  24th  to  the  height  of  23?  28'  above 
the  horizon.  The  North  Cape  is  in  lat.  700  10',  or 
2%,  degrees  within  the  Arctic  circle,  and  by  joining 
one  of  Cook's  tours  you  may  go  there  next  summer, 
and  see  for  yourself  the  "  midsummer,  midnight, 
Norway  sun  set  into  sunrise  "'  as  the  poet  says. 


GEOGRAPHY. 


44.  Between  these  tropics  and  circles  lie  the 
zones  or  belts,  into  which  the  surface  of  the  earth 
was  for  long  divided  by  geographers.  There  are  five 
of  them.  (1)  The  Torrid  Zone,  including  all  the  space 
between  the  tropic  of  Cancer  on  the  north,  and  the 
tropic  of  Capricorn  on  the  south.  Within  this  space. 
460  56'  wide  from  south  to  north,  we  have  seen  that 
the  noonday  sun  stands  vertical  overhead  at  every  spot 
twice  in  every  year.  (2)  The  two  Temperate  Zones, 
north  and  south.  They  reach  from  the  tropic  of  Cancer 
to  the  Arctic  circle,  and  from  the  tropic  of  Capricorn 
to  the  Antarctic  circle.  Each  is  43  °  4'  wide  from 
north  to  south,  and  in  each  the  sun  is  never  vertical, 
but  on  the  other  hand  there  is  always  a  day  and  a 
night — that  is  to  say,  the  sun  rises  and  sets  in  each 
24  hours  throughout  the  year.  (3)  The  two  Frigid 
Zones  occupy  the  remaining  space.  They  are  each 
230  28'  from  the  circle  to  the  Pole,  or  460  56'  from 
circle  to  circle,  measuring  over  the  Pole  to  the  other 
side  ;  and  in  each,  as  already  explained,  during  a 
part  of  the  year  the  sun  never  rises,  and  during  a 
part  of  it  he  never  sets.  So  much  for  the  tropics  and 
zones. 

45.  Mercator's  map,  you  recollect,  enabled  the  sailor 
to  mark  his  course  as  a  straight  line.  But  having 
got  this,  and  the  correct  latitude  and  longitude, 
there  is  still  another  thing  wanted.  The  map,  we 
will  say,  tells  the  sailor  to  sail  north-east,  that  is, 
half  way  between  north  and  east ;  but  how  is  he  to 
know  where  north  and  east  are?  For  the  north 
he  has  to  look  at  ,lhe  Pole  Star,  which  stands  above 
the  North  Pole,  and  east  is  roughly  where  the  sun 
is  at  six  in  the  morning.  But  suppose  it  is  cloudy 
or  foggy,   and  neither  sun  nor  stars  can  be  seen;  or 


MARINER'S   COMPASS. 


33 


suppose  even  that  it  is  fine,  how  is  he  to  maintain 
through  the  day  the  course  which  he  was  able  to  take 
when  he  saw  the  Pole  Star,  or  the  sun  rising  ? 

46.  This  he  is  able  to  do  by  the  mariner's  com- 
pass, or  needle,  which  is  a  straight  steel  magnet, 
balanced  on  its  middle  in  a  box  so  hung  as  to 
be  always  level  however  the  ship  may  be  moving. 
Being  a  magnet,  the  needle  always  points  towards  the 
north,  and  as  it  carries  above  it  a  round  card  divided 
into  32  parts  or  "  points,"  you  will  see  that  the  head 
of  the  ship  can  be  kept  in  any  direction  that  the 
captain  likes.     The  ship  is  now  being  steered  in  the 


34  GEOGRAPHY. 


direction  of  N.N.E.,  and  if,  on  looking  at  his  map, 
the  captain  saw  that  he  ought  to  go  N.E.  by  N,  he 
would  alter  the  helm  so  that  the  centre  line  of  the 
ship  should  agree  with  that  point,  and  all  would  be 
right. 

47.  The  compass  was  invented  in  the  12th  or  13th 
century,  no  one  knows  by  whom.  Before  its  discover) 
ships  crept  about  close  to  land,  or  if  they  ventured 
out,  as  St.  Paul's  ship  did,  for  an  open  course  of  5  or 
600  miles,  were  at  once  in  the  greatest  uncertainty 
when  the  sun  and  stars  were  hid. 

48.  I  said  that  the  needle  pointed  towards  the 
north,  but  it  does  not  always  point  exactly  to  it.  In 
fact  there  are  only  two  lines  on  the  earth's  surface 
along  which  the  needle  does  point  to  the  true  north, 
and  neither  of  the  two  has  any  connection  with  parallels 
or  meridians,  but  seems  to  cross  them  at  haphazard. 
One  of  them  sweeps  up  from  the  Antarctic  circle, 
enters  the  east  coast  of  S.  America,  in  S.  lat.  240, 
a  little  south  of  Rio  Janeiro,  leaves  it  again  at 
Cayenne,  north  of  the  mouth  of  the  Amazons,  crosses 
the  Atlantic  outside  the  West  Indian  islands,  enters 
North  America  near  Cape  Hatteras,  and  runs  to  a 
point  north-west  of  Hudson's  Bay.  The  other  line 
lies  nearly  opposite  across  the  world,  and  is  much 
more  irregular  in  its  course.  It  too  comes  up  from 
the  Antarctic  circle,  and  enters  South  Australia  in 
E.  long.  1290,  S.  lat.  320,  in  the  Australian  Bight. 
It  leaves  it  again  in  King's  Sound,  lat.  170  S.,  and 
long.  1230  E.,  and  taking  a  sudden  bend  to  the  west, 
passes  outside  of  Java,  Sumatra,  and  the  Malabar  coast, 
enters  the  continent  of  Asia  in  E.  long.  6o°,  runs  to  the 
west  of  the  Caspian,  passes  between  lakes  Ladoga  and 
Onega,  and  enters  the  Arctic  Sea  near  the  North  Cape. 


I/O  IV  THE   COMPASS    VAR/ES.  3$ 

49.  Along  these  lines  there  is  no  variation  of  the 
compass,  but  the  needle  points  straight  to  the  true 
north ;  and  as  you  leave  them  on  either  side  it 
varies.  To  the  east  of  them  it  points  to  the  west 
of  the  true  north,  and  to  the  west  of  them  it  points 
east  of  the  true  north,  more  and  more  as  you  forsake 
the  lines  of  no  variation.  At  the  south  of  Greenland 
the  variation  is  50  degrees  West,  and  if  you  wanted 
to  steer  N.N.E.  through  Smith's  Sound,  as  the  Arctic 
Expedition  did,  you  would  have  to  set  the  ship's 
head  West  by  North.  (Look  at  the  Compass,  fig.  10.) 
The  variation  at  London  is  190  26'  West,  at  Cork  24° 
West,  and  so  on.  The  lines  of  variation  all  over  the 
world  are  marked  on  the  Admiralty  charts,  so  that 
no  mistake  need  be  made. 

50.  This  variation  is  not  always  the  same  at  the 
same  place,  but  changes  year  by  year  or  day  by  day. 
It  was  first  noticed  by  Columbus  on  Sept.  13,  1492. 
In  the  year  1580  the  variation  at  London  was  n°  15' 
East.  In  1660  it  had  decreased  to  nothing,  and  the 
needle  at  London  then  stood  true  ;  but  it  immediately 
began  to  vary  on  the  other  side,  and  increased  till 
1818,  when  it  reached  a  limit  of  24°  30'  West;  then 
it  began  to  decrease,  and  now  the  variation  there 
is  1 90  26'  West. 

51.  The  lines  of  variation  come  together  at  two 
places.  One  is  north  of  Hudson's  Bay,  near  Port 
Kennedy,  in  700  N.  lat.,  970  W.  long.  A  second  is  in 
the  Antarctic  regions,  73°  S.  lat,  1470  E.  long.  These 
points  are  called  magnetic  poles,  and  if  you  take  the 
compass-needle  to  one  of  them  it  will  behave  very 
strangely.  It  will  not  remain  level,  but  will  dip,  and 
stand  straight  up  and  down,  the  north  end  down  and 
the  south  straight  in  the  air ;  also,  if  it  is  prevented 

B  a 


36  GEOGRAPHY. 


from  doing  this,  and  obliged  to  remain  level,  it  will 
turn  equally  well  to  all  points,  just  as  a  common  piece 
of  steel,  not  a  magnet,  would  do ;  in  fact  over  the 
magnetic  pole  the  north  is  nothing  to  the  magnet. 
The  variation  of  the  needle  east  or  west  is  called 
its  declination  :  the  dip  up  and  down,  is  called  its 
inclination. 

52.  Time.  Another  remark  before  we  close  this 
part  of  the  Primer.  We  have  seen  that  the  circumfer- 
ence of  the  earth  is  divided  into  360  parts  or  degrees. 
As  it  goes  round  on  its  axis  once  in  24  hours,  its 
surface  moves  at  the  rate  of  15  degrees  an  hour, 
since  15x24  =  360.  I  am  not  speaking  now  of 
the  movement  of  the  earth  round  the  sun,  but  of 
its  motion  on  its  axis  only — its  rotation,  not  its 
revolution.  The  sun  is  standing  still  at  a  distance,  and 
the  earth  spins  round  once  in  24  hours  from  west 
to  east ;  and  thus  every  place  comes  into  view  of 
the  sun — which  is  sunrise  ;  arrives  right  opposite 
him — which  is  noonday ;  and  loses  sight  of  him 
again — which  is  sunset.  But  move  a  short  distance 
on  either  side  of  your  own  place,  and  each  of  these 
events  will  happen  sooner  or  later  than  before.  If 
you  move  to  the  East,  sooner ;  if  to  the  West, 
later.  The  difference  made  by  moving  one  minute  of 
longitude  would  be  4  seconds  of  time,  and  by  one 
degree  of  longitude  4  minutes  of  time. 

53.  And  this  explains  why,  when  you  go  from 
the  place  in  which  you  live  to  one  east  of  it,  your 
watch  seems  to  lose.  It  is  not  that  your  watch 
loses,  but  that  you  have  arrived  at  a  place  where  the 
sun  comes  into  view  of  the  earth,  and  comes  to 
1 2  o'clock,  sooner  than  where  you  usually  live.  Sup- 
pose you  go  from  London  to  Hamburg.     Hamburg  is 


TIME   OF  TWO  PLACES.  37 

east  of  London  by  10  degrees  of  longitude.  Now  the 
earth  turns  once  round,  that  is  through  360  degrees 
of  longitude,  in  24  hours ;  and  as  from  London  to 
Hamburg  is  10  degrees,  when  you  are  at  Hamburg 
you  are  one  36th  part  of  24  hours,  or  40  minutes, 
nearer  the  sun  than  in  London ;  that  is  to  say,  the 
earth  arrives  at  sunrise  and  at  12  o'clock,  40  minutes 
sooner  in  Hamburg  than  it  does  in  London.  But 
your  watch  keeps  London  time,  and  therefore,  when 
it  is  12  o'clock  at  Hamburg,  your  watch  is  11.20, 
because  at  that  moment  it  is  11.20  at  London.  In 
other  words,  London  will  have  to  travel  40  minutes 
farther  east  before  it  comes  opposite  the  sun  for 
12  o'clock.  If  when  it  is  12  at  Hamburg  they 
were  to  telegraph  the  time  from  London,  it  would 
be  11.20  ;  and  if  when  it  is  12  at  London  they  were 
to  telegraph  to  you  from  Hamburg,  it  would  be  12.40 
there — Hamburg  would  have  passed  12  o'clock,  or  the 
meridian  line,  by  40  minutes. 

54.  Go  to  a  place  west  of  London  and  the  opposite 
happens.  Take  New  York,  which  is  75°  West  longi- 
tude. Now  75  times  4  minutes  is  300  minutes,  or  5 
hours  ;  that  is  to  say,  5  hours  after  it  has  struck  12 
o'clock  at  London,  New  York  will  have  come  whirling 
round  to  the  same  place  at  which  London  was  5  hours 
before,  and  will  arrive  opposite  the  sun,  and  have  its 
12  o'clock;  and  meantime  London  will  have  gone  on 
with  its  day,  and  its  clocks  will  be  striking  5  in  the 
afternoon.  And  this  accounts  for  the  fact  that  tele- 
graphs arrive  in  New  York  from  London  apparently 
before  the  hour  at  which  they  are  sent  off.  Thus, 
say  the  Boat-race  is  won  by  Oxford  at  1.35  p.m.  The 
news  is  telegraphed  to  New  York,  and  arrives  there, 
we'll  say,  by  2  London  time.     But  at  2  London  time 


38  GEOGRAPHY. 


it  is  only  9  New  York  time  (5  hours  earlier),  so  that 
New  York  actually  hears  of  the  event  4  hours  and  25 
minutes  before  the  hour  at  which  it  happened  ! 

55.  After  the  railways  were  made  it  was  found  very 
inconvenient  to  have  one  time  in  London  and  another 
at  Exeter  or  Birmingham,  and  so  in  all  common  matters 
the  towns  of  England  sink  their  own  correct  time, 
and  the  clocks  are  set  to  that  of  London.  Thus  a 
train  leaving  London  at  9  arrives  at  Bristol  in  4 
hours,  and  finds  the  clocks  there  1,  exactly  as  they 
are  in  London ;  though  if  the  clocks  told  the  correct 
time  they  would  show  12.50,  Bristol  being  20  34'  west 
of  London,  equivalent  to  rather  more  than  10  minutes 
of  time.  And  communication  will  increase  until  the 
same  thing  that  has  been  done  in  England  will  have 
to  be  done  outside  of  it,  and  sooner  or  later  all 
countries  will  have  to  keep  London  time. 

56.  As  you  go  farther  and  farther  round  the  world, 
the  difference  between  the  hour  where  you  are  and  the 
hour  at  Greenwich  will  increase  till  it  reaches  1 2  hours, 
and  if  you  sail  on  till  you  get  back  to  Greenwich  again 
you  will  have  gained  or  lost  24  hours,  according  as  you 
sailed  east  or  west — gained  if  you  went  east  by  the  Suez 
Canal,  lost  if  you  went  west  by  America.  In  the  first 
case,  when  you  got  back,  if  it  were  Tuesday  on  board 
the  ship,  it  would  be  Monday  on  the  newspapers  in 
London  ;  in  the  second  case,  it  would  be  Tuesday  on 
board  and  Wednesday  on  the  newspapers.  To  correct 
this  the  log  or  journal  of  the  ship  is  always  altered 
when  it  arrives  at  the  meridian  of  1800  (half-way  round 
the  world  from  London),  and  a  day  is  added  or  dropt 
in  the  reckoning  as  she  has  sailed  East  or  West.  But 
the  old  sailors  were  not  always  careful  to  do  this,  and 
some  curious  things  happened  in  consequence.    When 


ANGLE   OF  NINETY  DEGREES.  39 

Captain  Basil  Hall  got  to  Manilla  (1200  E.  long.)  he 
found  that  their  Sunday  was  his  Monday.  At  Tahiti 
the  reverse  has  happened,  and  they  keep  Sunday  on 
a  Saturday.  "  At  Sitka  in  Russian  America  (W.  long. 
1 3 6°)  half  the  people  are  Russians  who  have  arrived 
from  Russia  across  Asia,  and  half  are  Americans  who 
have  come  from  the  United  States.  Hence  when  it 
is  Sunday  with  the  Russians  it  is  Saturday  with  the 
Americans ;  and  the  Russians  are  busy  on  Monday, 
while  the  Americans  are  in  church  on  Sunday,  to 
the  great  interruption  of  business."  (See  Clarke's 
Geographical  Reader. ,) 

57.  Now  you  can  understand  what  I  meant  when 
I  said  (§19)  that  the  traveller  looked  at  his  chro- 
nometer to  find  the  longitude.  His  chronometer  is 
set  to  Greenwich  time,  and  always  tells  Greenwich 
time,  and  therefore  if  he  finds  by  his  observations 
that  at  the  place  he  is  at  it  is  12  o'clock  when  his 
chronometer  is  3,  he  will  know  that  he  is  three  hours 
west  of  Greenwich,  and  3  hours  x  15  degrees -45  de- 
grees East  longitude.  So  important  is  this  simple 
method  of  finding  the  longitude  that  in  17 14  our 
Government  offered  ^30,000  for  a  chronometer  which 
would  tell  it  within  even  so  great  a  distance  as  thirty 
miles  ! 

58.  Once  more  before  we  leave  our  globe  for 
the  earth  itself,  see  how  these  scientific  terms 
have  worked  their  way  into  common  speech.  You 
have  often  heard  the  expression — "  angle  of  ninety 
degrees  ;"  "  angle  of  forty-five."  You  remember  that 
each  meridian  is  divided  into  360  degrees  over  its 
whole  length.  If,  therefore,  from  the  Equator  over 
the  Pole,  round  by  the  Equator  and  South  Pole  to 
the  starting-point  again  was  360  degrees,  it  stands  to 


GEOGRAPHY. 


reason  that  from  the  Equator  to  the  Pole  will  be  one 
quarter   of  that,    or   90   degrees.      From  e  to  n  is 


Fig.  11. 

90  degrees ;  and  the  angle  at  c,  the  angle  ecn,  which 
is  opposite  that  opening  of  90  degrees,  is  called 
an  "  angle  of  90  degrees,"  or  a  "  right  angle," — that 
which  a  stick  makes  with  the  floor  when  you  stand  it 
quite  upright.  And  an  angle  of  45  degrees,  wed, 
is  exactly  half  the  angle  of  900 — half  way  between 
being  level  and  being  upright. 


THE  EARTH. 

59.  We  will  now  leave  the  lines  and  figures  on  the 
globe,  and  go  to  the  Earth  itself,  and  the  land  and 
water  upon  it. 

60.  In  the  foregoing  account  we  have  spoken  of  the 
earth  as  a  sphere,  or  an  exactly  round  ball.  But  this, 
though  practically  true  for  our  purpose  then,  is  not 
strictly  correct,  for  the  earth  is  not  exactly  round. 
You  can  see  it  is  not.  The  mere  roughness  of  the  fields 
and  roads  and  hills,  not  to  speak  of  the  high  mountains 
or  the  depths  of  the  sea,  all  tell  you  that  it  is  not 
exactly  round.  On  so  big  a  ball  as  the  earth,  how- 
ever,   these   things   do   not   count    for   much.     The 


FIGURE  OF  THE  EARTH.  41 


highest  mountain  is  not  quite  30,000  feet  high,  and 
the  deepest  place  known  in  the  sea  is  hardly  so  deep. 
Add  these  together  and  you  have  60,000  feet,  and 
what  is  60  thousand  feet  to  a  vast  ball  like  the  earth, 
which  is  42  million  feet  through  ?  it  is  only  like  the 
little  roughnesses  on  the  rind  of  a  smooth  orange, 
or  the  tiny  pits  and  dots  on  the  shell  of  an  ostrich's 
egg.  In  proportion  to  an  orange  the  60  thousand 
feet  would  be  the  thickness  of  the  paper  on 
which  this  page  is  printed.  These,  therefore, 
may  go  for  nothing. 

61.  But  there  are  other  things,  not  mere  rough- 
nesses, but  actual  differences  in  the  shape  or  figure 
of  the  earth.  The  earth  has  been  measured — through, 
round,  and  across;  they  are  still  measuring  it,  and 
always  coming  nearer  the  truth  ;  but  at  present  what 
we  know  of  its  figure  is  that  round  the  Equator  it  is 
not  quite  a  true  circle,  but  is  very,  very  slightly  oval. 
Its  diameter  in  *one  direction  is  7,926^3  statute  miles, 
and  in  another  7,924^  miles,  a  difference  of  two  miles 
in  nearly  8,000.  Then  again,  from  Pole  to  Pole  the 
distance  is  7,899  statute  miles,  so  that  the  diameter 
there  is  less  than  that  at  the  Equator  by  some  26 
miles,  and  the  earth  is  consequently  that  much  bigger 
round  the  Equator  than  it  is  round  the  Poles ;  a 
shape  which  is  called  an  oblate  spheroid.  Such,  as 
far  as  we  know  at  present,  are  the  differences  in  the 
figure  of  the  earth  from  what  it  would  be  if  it  were 
round  like  a  billiard-ball. 

62.  It  has  been  sometimes  said  that  the  difference 
in  size  between  the  Equator  and  the  Poles  has  come 
from  the  earth  having  spun  round  while  it  was  in  a 

*  Diameter  at  150  34'  E.  long.  =  41,852,700  feet 
Ditto  at  1050  34'  E.  long.  =  41,839,944  do. 
Ditto    at  Poles    .    .    .    .  =  41,706,858  do. 


42  GEOGRAPHY. 


soft  state,  bulging  out  as  a  ball  of  clay  might  bulge 
if  put  on  a  wire  and  made  to  spin  very  fast  j  but  we 
know  too  little  of  the  history  of  the  earth  at  those 
early  times  to  allow  us  to  say  if  the  difference  in  shape 
arose  from  that  cause  or  not.  But  two  things  I  may 
tell  you  about  it.  ist.  That  thin  band  of  13  miles  thick 
on  a  ball  of  8,000,  is  enough  to  give  the  sun  and  moon 
such  a  purchase  on  the  earth  that  they  are  gradually 
pulling  its  axis  round  and  altering  its  attitude  with  re- 
gard to  the  stars.  This  is  called  "the  precession  of  the 
equinoxes,"  and  it  may  cause  in  time  a  great  change 
in  climate,  and  cover  England  with  perpetual  ice. 
2nd.  But  for  that  trivial  flattening  at  the  Poles  and 
projection  at  the  Equator,  the  sea  would  not  be  dis- 
tributed over  the  surface  of  the  earth  as  it  is,  but  would 
be  gathered  round  the  Equator,  leaving  a  great  conti- 
nent of  dry  land  at  each  Pole. 

63.  I  cannot  attempt  to  give  you  any  idea  of  the 
way  in  which  the  earth  is  measured.  It  is  enough  for  us 
to  know  that  the  distances  have  been  exactly  measured, 
and  that  they  are  as  I  have  stated  them.  But  notwith- 
standing what  I  said  of  the  roughnesses  of  the  earth 
being  comparatively  so  small,  you  may  naturally  ask 
how  so  uneven  a  body  can  be  measured  as  if  it  were 
a  smooth  ball ;  and  if  it  will  not  make  a  great  differ- 
ence in  the  length  of  the  diameter  if  it  is  measured 
to  the  top  of  a  mountain  or  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 
And  your  question  is  quite  right.  Such  measure- 
ments must  be  taken  most  exactly  to  be  of  use, 
and  therefore  the  level  of  the  sea,  which  is  believed 
to  be  about  half  way  between  the  tops  of  the  moun- 
tains and  the  bottom  of  the  ocean,  is  chosen  as  the 
surface  of  the  world,  and  the  measurements  given 
above  are  those   of  an   oblate  spheroid  as  large  as 


LAND  AND    WATER.  43 

the  earth  would  be  if  the  dry  land  were  removed,  and 
the  ocean  covered  everything. 

64.  But  you  may  still  say,  "  The  level  of  the  sea  ? 
The  sea  is  always  rising  or  falling,  and  never  at  one 
level."  Well,  then,  the  level  which  is  taken  in  all 
such  calculations,  in  the  Ordnance  Survey  of  England, 
is  the  average  level  between  high  and  low  water  at 
Liverpool;  and  the  diameter  and  circumference  of 
the  earth  are  the  diameter  and  circumference  of  a 
ball  covered  with  a  smooth  surface  starting  at  that 
height.  For  many  other  purposes  the  level  of  high- 
water  at  London  Bridge,  or,  as  it  is  called,  *  Trinity 
high-water  mark,  is  taken. 

65.  Now,  on  looking  at  the  globe,  or  a  map  of  the 
world,  the  first  thing  that  must  strike  every  one  is 
how  much  more  water  there  is  on  it  than  dry 
land.  The  whole  surface  is  197  millions  of  square 
miles ;  but  the  dry  land — that  is  to  say,  those  parts 
of  the  earth  which  are  high  enough  to  stand  up 
out  of  the  water — is  only  at  most  52  millions,  leaving 
145  millions  for  the  ocean.  In  other  words,  the  land 
is  about  one-quarter  of  the  whole  surface,  and  the 
ocean  about  three-quarters. 

66.  This  is  the  first  thing  that  strikes  us.  The 
second  is,  how  very  unequally  the  land  is  arranged. 
Instead  of  being  spread  evenly  all  over  the  sur-* 
face,  it  is  collected  together,  much  more  to  the  north 
than  to  the  south,  and  to  the  east  than  to  the  west. 
There  are  38  million  square  miles  of  land  above  the 
Equator,  to  13^  below  it;  in  other  words,  nearly 
three  times  as  much.  Strangely  enough,  London  is 
very  nearly  in  the  centre  of  this  mass  of  land  ;  and 


*  Trinity  high-water  mark.     So  called  from  the  Trinity  House,  a  corpora- 
tion which  has  ciiargc  of  pilots,  lighthouses,  buoys,  and  othci  nautical  matters. 


GEOGRAPHY. 


Fig.   13. 


TWO   GREAT  CONTINENTS.  45 

placing  ourselves  over  its  position  on  the  globe  (as  in 
fig.  12),  we  have  nine-tenths  of  the  entire  land  of  the 
world  in  view  below  us.  In  like  manner,  New 
Zealand,  which  is  opposite  England  on  the  other  side 
of  the  world,  is  in  the  centre  of  the  ocean  hemisphere, 
and  has  a  waste  of  water  on  all  sides  of  it.  There  is 
land  round  the  South  Pole,  estimated  at  nearly  double 
the  size  of  Europe.  But  of  this  next  to  nothing  is 
known,  it  is  enclosed  in  eternal  ice,  without  men  and 
women,  apparently  without  life,  and  all  but  inaccessible. 
The  difference  between  the  land  east  of  London  and 
the  land  west  of  it  is  also  very  great,  as  may  be  seen 
on  any  general  map  of  the  World  ;  they  do  not  at  all 
balance,  but  there  are  36  million  square  miles  to 
the  east,  and  only  15^  to  the  west. 

67.  The  third  thing  that  will  strike  us  is  that, 
though  the  mass  of  the  land  is  thus  collected  in 
the  northern  part  of  the  world,  it  seems  to  be 
everywhere  reaching  down  towards  the  south. 
South  America,  Africa,  and  Australia  stretch  out  like 
gigantic  fingers  and  thumb  towards  the  Southern 
Pole ;  and  the  same  on  all  sides  farther  north,  for 
India,  Malacca,  Kamschatka,  Corea,  Florida,  and  even 
Sweden,  Norway,  and  Greenland,  all  seem  to  be 
pointing  down  in  the  same  southward  direction. 

68.  Returning  to  the  dry  land  in  the  Northern 
Hemisphere,  and  trying  to  look  at  it  as  if  we  had  never 
seen  or  heard  of  it  before,  we  shall  see  that  it  consists 
of  two  great  continents  or  masses,  one  to  the 
east  and  one  to  the  west.  For  Europe  and  Asia  are 
absolutely  one  continuous  tract,  with  Australasia  as 
its  outlying  islands ;  and  Africa — thougli  the  con- 
nection has  been  snapt  at  Gibraltar  and  Sicily  and 
the  Straits  of  Bab-el-Mandeb,  and  again  within  the 


46  GEOGRAPHY. 


last  ten  years  at  Suez — is  still  really  part  and  parcel 
of  the  rest  Thus  the  Old  World,  looked  at  as  mere 
land,  and  apart  from  political  or  historical  divisions, 
is  one  great  continent.  And  the  New  World,  too,  on 
the  western  side  of  the  globe,  is  still  one  continent, 
though  its  upper  and  lower  portions  are  held  together 
by  a  very  narrow  strip  of  land. 

69.  We  will  now  look  more  closely  still  at  the  two 
sides  of  the  world,  east  and  west,  the  Old  World  and 
the  New,  and  see  what  strikes  us  about  them. 

70.  In  general  direction  the  Old  World  runs 
across  the  globe,  not  up  and  down  it.  From  Cape 
de  Verde,  the  most  westerly  point  of  Africa,  to  the 
most  eastern  cape  of  Asia,  the  land  stretches  without 
interruption  for  174  degrees  of  longitude,  nearly  half 
the  circuit  of  the  world.  And  its  structure  or  frame- 
work lies  in  the  same  direction.  Through  the  entire 
length  of  this  great  continent  runs  a  line  of  mountains 
and  high  ground,  which,  notwithstanding  a  few  breaks  in 
its  European  portion,  forms  an  almost  continuous  wall 
or  chain  for  the  whole  distance,  rises  as  it  goes  east- 
ward, attains  an  enormous  height  and  mass,  and  seems 
to  gird,  and  hem  in,  and  consolidate  the  vast  continent 
around  and  above  it.  Beginning  on  the  shores  of  the 
Atlantic  in  the  Pyrenees  and  Atlas,  it  continues  through 
the  Alps  and  Carpathians,  the  Caucasus  and  the  range  of 
El  Burz,  to  the  Hindoo  Koosh  and  the  high  plateau  of 
Pamir,  called  "  the  roof  of  the  world,"  which  stands 
like  a  huge  fortress,  15,000  feet  high,  to  bar  the  direct 
road  between  east  and  west.  Thence  it  passes  to  the 
still  higher  tracts  of  Tibet,  great  plains  exceeding  in 
height  the  highest  summits  of  the  Alps,  enclosed 
between  the  lofty  ramparts  of  the  Himalayas  on  the 
south  and  the  Kuen-Um  mountains  on  the  north  :  and 


THE   OLD    WORLD. 


if    % 


47 


Kk 


R '  ■ 


-t^ 


\% 


48  GEOGRAPHY. 


thence  the  mountain  wall  is  prolonged  in  the  ranges  of 
Yuen-ling,  In-shan.  and  Stanovoi,  till  it  passes  finally 
to  the  Pacific  Ocean  at  Behring's  Strait. 

71.  Such  is  the  backbone  of  the  great  continent  of 
the  Old  World,  and  like  a  true  backbone  it  sends  out 
its  ribs  and  flanks  on  either  side  of  it.  The  sierras  of 
Spain,  the  Apennines,  the  Alps  of  Turkey  and  Greece, 
the  Taurus,  Zagros,  and  Suleiman  mountains,  the 
Indian  Ghats,  and  Burman  ranges,  on  the  south ;  the 
Cevennes,  the  Jura,  the  Vosges,  the  Ural,  on  the 
north,  form  its  ribs  ;  while  between  and  around  these 
lie  the  flanks  of  lowland,  such  as  India  and  Burmah, 
the  Steppes,  and  the  great  plain  of  Central  Europe  and 
Northern  Asia. 

72.  The  great  plain  which  lies  to  the  north  of 
this  vast  mountain  barrier  is  a  feature  not  less  remark- 
able than  itself.  Beginning  in  the  Midland  Counties 
of  England,  it  stretches  over  the  whole  width  of  the 
Old  World,  through  the  Netherlands,  Prussia,  Russia, 
and  Siberia.  The  Ural  mountains  alone  cross  it, 
but  they  hardly  alter  its  character — a  wide,  gently 
swelling,  gently  sloping  plain,  stretching  from  the 
mountains  to  the  sea,  drained  by  some  of  the  largest 
rivers  of  the  world,  and  exposed  over  a  great  part  to 
a  frightfully  cold  and  inclement  climate. 

73.  These  plains  and  the  mountain  range  have  been 
of  vast  importance  in  the  world's  history.  South  of 
the  mountains,  in  India,  Mesopotamia,  Greece,  Italy, 
Spain,  were  the  ancient  seats  of  civilisation  and  wealth, 
an  inviting  climate  and  happy  life  ;  north  of  them,  in 
the  high  plains,  were  cold,  poverty,  and  barbarism, 
fierce  hordes  of  wild  and  savage  men.  The  Medes  who 
took  Babylon,  the  Scythians  and  Parthians  who  ravaged 
Palestine  and  Egypt,  the  Huns,  Goths,  and  Vandals  who 


CENTRAL  ASIA.  49 


desolated  Italy  and  Spain,  the  Turks  who  conquered 
both  India  and  Greece,  all  descended  from  these  lofty 
plains ;  and  all  entered  the  south,  and  passed  from 
barbarism  to  civilisation,  through  the  passes  in  this 
wall  of  mountains.  In  modern  times  this  has  been  re 
versed.  It  is  now  we  of  the  low  warm  countries  who 
are  penetrating  into  the  high  bleak  ones.  And  one 
of  the  great  geographical  and  commercial  problems 
of  the  present  day  is  to  find  means  for  bringing  down 
the  wool  and  minerals  from  the  lofty  plains  of  Tibet 
and  Cashmere  to  the  lowlands  and  the  sea,  in  ex- 
change for  the  cloth  and  the  cutlery  of  Europe. 

74.  North  of  Tibet,  and  enclosed  between  it  and 
the  Altai  mountains,  which  overlook  the  long  plains  of 
Siberia,  stretch  the  savage  deserts  of  Gobi  and  Mon- 
golia, the  home  of  the  Mongols.  West  of  these,  and 
reaching  from  the  foot  of  Pamir  to  the  Caspian,  is  a 
region  which  has  played  a  most  important  part  in 
history — the  great  district  of  Turkestan,  the  original 
seat  of  the  Turks  and  many  other  European  nations. 
That  immense  district,  with  that  of  Tibet — which  is 
distinct  from  Turkestan,  though  agreeing  with  it  in 
this  one  feature — has  been  called  the  great  conti- 
nental region,  or  region  of  "continental"  streams, 
because  its  waters  are  mostly  "contained"  within  itself. 
Tibet  is  so  high,  so  far  inland,  and  so  enclosed,  that  a 
large  part  of  its  rivers  cannot  get  to  the  sea,  and  have 
to  empty  themselves  into  lakes.  Turkestan,  however, 
is  as  low  as  Tibet  is  high.  From  the  heights  of  Pamir, 
and  the  "  roof  of  the  world,"  the  mountains  suddenly 
descend,  and  two  immense  rivers,  the  Amoo  Daria  and 
Sir  Daria  (Oxus  and  Jaxartes)  rush  down  to  the  plains 
14,000  feet  below.  But  not  to  reach  the  ocean,  though 
from  a  different  cause  than  before.     While  Tibet  is 


5o  GEOGRAPHY. 


too  lofty  and  too  much  shut  in,  Turkestan  is  too  low, 
and  the  rivers  just  mentioned  and  the  other  streams 
of  the  plains  of  Turkestan  flow  either  into  the  Sea 
of  Aral,  which  is  a  few  feet  above  the  ocean,  or  into 
the  Caspian,  which  is  a  few  feet  below  it.  In  fact 
the  "continental"  region  penetrates  far  into  Europe, 
and  embraces  half- of  Russia;  for  the  river  Volga,  the 
largest  of  European  rivers,  empties  itself  into  the 
Caspian  and  does  not  come  near  the  ocean.  Thus 
this  region,  notwithstanding  a  difference  of  many  thou- 
sand feet  in  the  level  of  its  two  portions,  has  in  both 
the  characteristic  that  its  waters  are  all  contained 
within  itself.  It  stretches  from  within  a  very  few  miles 
of  Petersburg  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Yellow  Sea, 
and  contains  fully  two  million  square  miles. 

75.  If  we  now  turn  to  the  New  World  we  shall 
find  that  in  many  respects  it  forms  a  striking  contrast 
to  the  Old  one.  Instead  of  running  in  the  general 
direction  of  the  parallels  of  latitude,  east  and  west, 
America  stretches  almost  directly  north  and  south, 
along  the  meridians  of  longitude ;  and  instead  of 
being  compact  and  massive,  like  the  principal  part  of 
the  Old  World,  it  is  long  and  straggling,  with  a  large 
extent  of  sea-coast,  and  with  a  very  near  approach  to 
a  separation  between  its  two  portions.  Instead  of  its 
centre  being  occupied  by  a  great  mass  of  highlands, 
guarded  by  mountains  all  but  impossible  to  climb/ 
and  when  climbed  cold,  bleak,  barren,  and  desert, 
contained  within  itself  and  shut  off  from  the  rest  of 
creation — the  mountains  of  America  are  mostly  ranged 
close  to  one  of  its  coasts,  and  its  lowlands  abound  in 
splendid  rivers,  which  form  natural  roads  to  every  part 
of  the  country,  and  make  the  vast  continents  of  South 
and  North  America  in  great  part  accessible  from  the 


THE  NEW  WORLD. 


GEOGRAPHY. 


sea  to  steamers.  Its  remarkable  features  are  its 
mountains,  plains,  and  rivers— the  mountains  of 
huge  height  and  great  beauty,  and  containing  more 
active  volcanoes  than  any  other  range,  the  plains  the 
largest  and  the  rivers  the  most  extensive  that  the  world 
possesses. 

76.  It  is  the  position  of  the  mountains  that  first 
strikes  the  eye.  In  South  America  the  Andes,  as  the 
mountains  are  called,  run  close  to  the  western  side  of 
the  continent — a  continuous  chain  of  4,000  miles  in 
length,  often  of  double  and  triple  parallel  ridges,  at  a 
mean  height  of  11,000  feet,  with  great  active  volcanoes, 
and  numerous  peaks  varying  from  16,000  to  24,000 
feet  in  height.  At  the  Isthmus  they  are  interrupted  ; 
but  immediately  start  again,  and  under  the  name  of 
the  Rocky  mountains  run  in  the  same  northerly 
direction,  though  at  a  greater  distance  from  the 
sea-coast,  through  the  United  States  and  British 
America,  till  they  end  on  the  shore  of  the  Arctic 
Ocean,  after  an  almost  unbroken  course  of  more 
than  8,000  miles.  Such  a  range,  so  vast,  so  lofty, 
so  precipitous,  so  volcanic,  so  regular,  is  unparalleled 
in  the  world.  But  it  is  even  more  astonishing  when 
taken  in  connection  with  the  enormous  rivers  to 
which  it  gives  rise. 

77.  The  rivers  of  America  are  the  largest  in  the 
world,  not  only  for  their  length  and  volume  of  water, 
but  for  the  extent  of  their  basins.  (§200.)  In  South 
America  three  rivers,  the  Orinoco,  the  Amazons,  and 
the  La  Plata,  take  three-quarters  of  the  whole  drainage 
of  the  country  to  the  Atlantic,  and  each  of  these 
draws  a  large  amount  of  its  supply  from  the  flanks 
of  the  Andes.  Thus  the  curious  sight  is  presented 
of  rivers  rising  within  a  short  distance  of  one  ocean, 


RIVERS  OF  SOUTH  AMERICA.  53 

and  being  compelled  to  traverse  thousands  of  miles 
to  cast  themselves  into  another.  In  this  respect 
they  find  a  likeness,  though  on  a  smaller  scale,  in 
the  Po  ;  which,  while  it  rises  in  the  maritime  Alps 
near  the  Gulf  of  Genoa,  is  compelled  to  cross  the 
whole  of  the  plains  of  Lombardy  to  discharge  itself 
into  the  opposite  sea  of  the  Adriatic.  So  also  in 
South-eastern  Australia,  the  Murray  river  rises  be- 
hind Brisbane,  within  100  miles  of  the  Pacific,  and 
yet  runs  1,000  miles,  to  enter  the  Southern  Ocean  at 
Adelaide.  In  North  America  the  Mississippi  and  Mis- 
souri receive  much  of  their  drainage  from  the  Rocky 
mountains,  and  run  a  course  even  longer  than  that  of 
the  Amazons  j  but  the  picture  is  not  so  startling  as 
that  in  South  America,  because  the  Rocky  mountains 
stretch  much  farther  from  the  west  coast  than  the 
Andes  do,  and  because  the  rivers  do  not  cross  the  con- 
tinent so  directly,  but  derive  much  of  their  water  from 
the  Alleghany  mountains  on  the  east  coast,  and  the 
low  watershed  about  Lake  Superior  in  the  north.  But 
to  return  to  South  America.  A  great  part  of  it  may 
be  roughly  described  as  an  alluvial  plain  of  more  than 
2,000  miles  long,  sloping  very  gently  up  from  the 
Atlantic  to  a  prodigious  ridge  of.  mountains  on  the 
extreme  edge  of  its  farther  side.  True  the  centre  of 
the  country  is  occupied  by  an  important  plateau, 
which  gives  birth  to  other  considerable  rivers,  but  it 
sinks  into  insignificance  when  measured  against  the 
Andes,  and  does  not  interfere  with  the  general  truth 
of  the  rough  description  just  given. 

78.  The  New  World  has  its  "continental"  districts, 
but  on  a  smaller  scale  than  that  of  Central  Asia. 
One  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Bolivian  Andes,  a  plateau 
of  about  i,  1 00  miles  in  length  by  120  wide,  and  from 


$4  GEOGRAPHY. 


12  to  13,000  feet  high,  where  there  is  a  large  lake 
called  Titicaca,  and  other  lakes,  which  receive  the 
rivers  of  the  plateau.  Another  is  the  Great  Salt  Lake 
district  of  Utah  in  North  America,  between  the  Rocky- 
mountains  and  the  Sierra  Nevada,  500  miles  by  280, 
and  from  4,000  to  5,000  feet  high,  the  waters  of  which 
have  no  outlet  and  form  a  series  of  salt  lakes. 

79.  But  the  most  remarkable  lakes  of  America  are  the 
fresh  water  ones  of  the  Northern  Continent,  which  have 
no  parallel  elsewhere.  They  are  scattered  more  or 
less  over  the  whole  of  British  America,  chiefly  in 
its  central  and  southern  portions,  on  the  northern 
slopes  of  the  upper  waterparting  of  the  Missouri 
and  Mississippi ;  and  they  form  the  largest  mass 
of  fresh  water  on  the  surface  of  the  earth.  In  the 
northern  portion,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Territory,  there 
are  lakes  of  large  area — such  as  Great  Slave  Lake, 
12,000  square  miles,  Great  Bear  Lake,  10,000,  Winni- 
peg, 9,000.  But  they  are  far  surpassed  by  those  some- 
what farther  south.  These  are  five  in  number,  each 
running  into  the  other,  and  each  lower  than  the  last — 
Lake  Superior,  627  feet  above  sea-level,  Huron  and 
Michigan  590,  Erie  564,  and  Ontario  232,  from  which 
the  river  St.  Lawrence  leads  direct  into  the  Atlantic. 
Between  Erie  and  Ontario  are  the  Falls  of  Niagara. 
Lake  Superior  is  the  size  of  Ireland,  and  900  feet 
deep.  The  depth  of  some  of  the  others  is  still  greater. 
They  cover  in  all  94,000  square  miles,  and  form 
nearly  one-third  of  the  basin  of  the  St.  Lawrence; 
their  beds  go  down  to  400  feet  below  the  sea-level ; 
and  they  contain  more  than  half  the  fresh  water  of 
the  globe. 

80.  But  there  are  other  points  in  which  the  New 
World  is  unlike  the  Old  one. 


DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  COUNTRIES. 


The  natural  circumstances  which  make  the  most 
important  and  radical  differences  between  continents  or 
countries,  and  give  one  an  advantage  over  another, 
independent  of  the  energy  of  its  inhabitants,  are 
three  : — 

i.  Length  and  indentation  of  coast- line  or 
seaboard. 

2.  Long,  large,  navigable  rivers. 

3.  Good  climate. 

Of  these,  coast-line  means  length  of  shore,  with 
bays,  gulfs,  estuaries,  and  headlands ;  to  shelter  ship- 
ping,  to  be  occupied  with  towns  and  villages,  fisheries, 
ship-yards,  harbours,  docks,  and  industry  and  civilisa- 
tion of  all  kinds,  and  to  nurture  the  independence 
and  love  of  adventure  which  are  the  virtues  of  sailors. 
Rivers  mean  easy  communication  with  the  interior, 
so  that  the  productions  of  other  countries  may  be  sent 
up  to  the  inland  places,  and  those  of  the  country 
itself  brought  down  for  export.  And  good  climate 
means  those  natural  conditions  of  heat  and  weather 
and  health,  without  which  it  is  not  possible  to  use  the 
two  other  advantages  when  you  have  got  diem. 

81.  Now  looking  at  the  world  in  the  light  of  these 
three  conditions,  it  is  easy  to  see  the  difference  between 
its  different  parts,  and  how  the  division  of  the  Old  World 
into  three  continents  came  about.  For  though,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  the  Old  World  is  one  great  mass 
of  land,  yet  when  employed  in  the  service  of  man  it 
naturally  divides  itself  into  the  well-known  three  por- 
tions of  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa.  Africa  has 
in  many  parts  a  poor  coast-line,  few  harbours,  few  rivers 
for  its  size,  and  much  unhealthy  climate ;  and  with 
the  exception  of  Egypt,  Algeria,  the  Cape  Colonies, 
and  a  few  other  places  on  the  coast,  the  whole  of  that 


56  GEOGRAPHY. 


immense  expanse  of  land,  12  millions  of  square  miles, 
abounding  in  rich  resources,  may  be  said  to  be  given 
over  to  barbarism,  idleness,  and  cruelty.  The  tse-tse 
fly,  fatal  to  horses  and  cattle,  is  alone  enough  to 
prevent  the  spread  of  agriculture  in  certain  districts. 
Egypt  and  the  Cape  owe  their  prosperity  mainly  to  the 
Nile  and  the  harbours  of  Simon's  Bay  and  Algoa  Bay. 
What  might  Africa  not  be  at  this  moment  if  its  vast 
bulk  were  pierced  by  a  Baltic  or  a  Mediterranean  Sen, 
which  would  admit  ships  and  commerce  with  their 
civilising  influences  to  penetrate  into  its  interior  ! 

82.  Of  the  mainland  of  Asia,  India  and  China  are 
the  only  fully  peopled,  industrious,  prosperous  portion. 
And  why  ?  because  China  has  an  indented  coast-line 
with  estuaries  and  harbours  ;  and  both  have  large,  long, 
navigable  rivers,  and  climates,  which  though  not  ab- 
solutely good  are  yet  quite  tolerable.  On  the  other 
hand  Arabia,  with  a  rocky  inaccessible  sea-coast,  and 
no  rivers,  is  a  desert.  Persia  is  almost  equally  without 
means  of  access,  and  equally  desert.  The  countries  of 
Central  Asia  are  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  world  by 
their  height,  and  want  of  connection  with  the  sea, 
and  their  severe  climate;  while  the  people  of  the 
vast  plains  of  Siberia,  one-fourth  larger  than  the 
whole  of  Europe,  watered  by  three  of  the  noblest 
rivers  in  the  world,  have  these  advantages  neutralised 
by  the  extreme  cold,  and,  like  the  districts  last  men- 
tioned, are  wild  and  uncivilised,  and  mainlydependent 
on  hunting  or  fishing  and  other  casual  modes  of  life. 
The  population  of  Siberia  is  not  as  much  as  one 
inhabitant  to  a  square  mile. 

8$.  With  all  this  Europe  is  in  happy  contrast. 
In  length  of  coast-line  it  is  far  better  off  than  the 
other  continents.     For  while  Asia  has  but  one  mile  of 


NATURAL   ADVANTAGES  OF  EUROPE. 


57 


coast  to  533  square  miles  of  surface,  and  Africa  one 
to  420,  Europe,  with  an  area  of  3,700,000  square 
miles,  has  19,500  miles  of  coast,  or  one  mile  to  every 
190  square  miles  of  surface,  and  out  of  the  whole 
19,500  not  more  than  3,000  are  difficult  of  access. 
No  natural  circumstances  more   favourable  to    navi- 


Fig.  16. 

gation  and  commerce  can  be  imagined  than  the  deeply 
indented  coasts  of  Asia  Minor,  and  the  Grecian  Archi- 
pelago— where  European  commerce  first  fixed  itself 
— Italy  with  its  double  seaboard  and  its  three  greai 
adjacent  islands,  or  the  equally  irregular  outline  of 
England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland.  Compare  a  coast  like 
Greece  (fig.  16)  with  that  of  Ceylon  (fig.  17),  which  has 
few  indentations,  even  if  those  few  be  important,  and 
the  inferiority  of  the  latter  to  the  former  as  a  nurse  of 
maritime  life  must  be  evident. 

84.  The  rivers  of  Europe,  though  far  behind  those  of 
Asia  for  size,  are  far  before  them  for  convenience  and 
advantage.  Spain  is  deficient  in  navigable  streams, 
and  suffers  in  consequence,  but  the  Danube,  the 
Rhine,  the  Seine,  the  Loire,  the  Elbe,  the  Po,  and 


GEOGRAPHY. 


Fig.  17. 
the  Vistula,  with  their  hundreds  of  brandies,  form 
splendid  roads,  up  and  down  which  commerce  pours 
its  tides  between  the  heart  of  the  continent  and  the 
ocean,  and,  beyond  the  ocean,  the  ports  and  rivers  of 
other  countries.  The  Russian  rivers  are  worthy  of 
consideration  by  themselves,  for  their  great  size,  their 
navigableness,  and  the  flatness  of  the  country  which 
they  drain ;  so  gently  swelling  as  to  enable  canals  to 
be  made  between  the  rivers,  by  which  boats  can  pass 
from  the  White  Sea  and  the  Baltic  to  the  Caspian,  the 
Black  Sea,  and  thence  to  the  Mediterranean.  But 
pre-eminent  above  them  all,  in  the  true  qualities  of 
a  useful  civilising  river,  is  the  Thames,  which,  though 
smaller  than  any  of  those  mentioned,  surpasses  every 
one  for  convenience  and  for  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
fitted  to  the  requirements  of  commerce. 


CLIMATE.     COMMERCE.  59 

85.  In  climate  Europe  is  equally  fortunate.  The 
line  of  permanent  frost,  or  average  temperature  at 
freezing-point  throughout  the  year,  which  includes  a 
large  part  of  Northern  Asia,  only  touches  Lapland 
and  the  north-east  corner  of  Russia  j  while  the 
line  of  700  mean  annual  temperature  sweeps  just 
past  its  southern  shores.  It  thus  escapes  both 
extremes.  It  has  neither  the  long  droughts  nor  the 
violent  deluges  of  rain  which  afflict  Asia  and  Africa, 
nor  the  typhoon  winds  and  sudden  cyclone  waves 
which  destroy  so  many  thousands  of  people ;  every- 
thing is  equable,  steady,  and  beneficent.  The  ocean 
isolates  it  from  the  Polar  regions,  softens  and  equalises 
the  temperature  of  its  coasts;  the  Gulf  Stream  cherishes 
and  moistens  its  western  shores ;  while  the  great 
furnace  of  Africa  is  near  enough  to  send  its  warmth 
across  the  Mediterranean  to  the  countries  opposite. 
Commerce— with  all  its  evils,  the  grand  instru- 
ment of  civilisation  in  the  world — if  not  European 
by  birth  is  so  by  adoption.  Here,  as  in  its  river, 
England  is  pre-eminent.  What  Europe  is  to  Asia  and 
Africa,  Great  Britain  is  to  Europe.  Trade,  which 
began  in  Phoenicia,  moved  westward  through  the 
promontories  and  islands  of  Greece,  through  the 
lagoons  of  the  Adriatic,  and  the  creeks  and  harbours 
of  the  Riviera,  through  Spain  and  Holland,  to  arrive 
at  last  at  our  favoured  isle  ;  where  no  day  is  too  hot 
and  no  day  too  cold  for  work,  where  business  is  never 
interrupted  by  frozen  rivers,  or  destructive  floods,  or 
tremendous  tempests,  or  any  other  of  those  operations 
of  nature  which  must  seriously  injure  the  commerce 
even  of  other  European  countries. 

86.  Looked  at  in  the  light  of  their  adaptation  to 
man's  necessities,  we  see,  therefore,  that  the  ancient 


6o  GEOGRAPHY. 


division  of  the  Old  World  into  the  three  continents 
of  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa  was  a  natural,  necessary, 
and  reasonable  one. 

87.  And  when  we  cross  the  ocean  to  the  New 
World,  which  the  ancients  did  not  know,  we  find 
similar  conditions  leading  to  similar  results.  South 
America,  as  we  have  seen,  has  a  splendid  system 
of  rivers  ;  its  natural  productions  are  of  great  luxuri- 
ance and  value;  its  coast-line  is  16,500  miles  to 
6,800,000  square  miles  of  surface — or  1  to  420  ;  but 
it  wants  harbours,  and  the  heat,  the  moisture,  the 
inundation  of  the  rivers,  and  the  plague  of  insects 
and  reptiles,  prevent  these  advantages  being  enjoyed, 
and  give  it  a  population  less  in  proportion  to  its  size 
than  even  Persia  or  Arabia. 

88.  The  conditions  of  Australia  are  in  many  respects 
equally  unfavourable.  Lying,  as  it  does,  between  S.  lat. 
ii°  and  390,  the  heat  even  on  the  sea-coast  is  often 
overpowering;  the  rainfall  is  small,  and  scorching 
winds  and  long  droughts  are  frequent,  though  the  cli- 
mate is  healthy.  The  mass  of  land  is  nearly  as  solid  as 
that  of  Africa.  The  Gulf  of  Carpentaria  is  a  fine  inland 
sea ;  the  harbours  of  Port  Jackson  and  Port  Philip  are 
magnificent,  and  there  are  other  inlets  and  estuaries, 
but  a  large  part  of  the  coast  is  very  unsuited  for  navi- 
gation. The  rivers  are  few,  and  with  the  exception  of 
the  Murray  small  and  shallow.  The  Murray  is  1,200 
miles  long,  and  drains  a  basin  of  more  than  200,000 
square  miles — more  than  twice  as  much  as  England, 
Wales,  and  Scotland ;  but  its  entrance  is  closed 
by  a  bar,  it  has  only  two  affluents  of  importance, 
and  the  other  rivers  are  mostly  mountain  streams, 
rushing  torrents  in  winter,  and  dry  beds  in  summer, 
so  that  internal  communicatio'n  by  those  channels  is 


AUSTRALIA.     NORTH  AMERICA.  61 


impossible.  A  great  part  of  the  centre  seems  to  be  a 
depressed  basin,  and  to  consist  of  a  sand)-,  waterless, 
burning  desert.  And  although  this  is  being  gradually- 
encroached  on,  and  may  ultimately  be  reclaimed,  it 
will  be  so  by  the  energy  of  the  British  race  working 
against  great  natural  difficulties. 

89.  It  is  in  North  America  that  we  find  the 
nearest  approach  to  the  favourable  conditions  of 
Europe,  making  it  practically  a  separate  continent 
from  South  America.  Its  area  is  8,600,000  square 
miles,  and  its  coast-line  24,500  miles  long,  so  that  it 
has  a  mile  of  shore  to  each  350  miles  of  surface.  It 
is  true  that  about  7,000  miles  of  the  coast  are  within 
the  Arctic  circle,  and  therefore  useless  for  navigation, 
and  the  western  coast,  on  the  Pacific,  is  not  much 
indented ;  but  the  eastern  side,  from  Newfoundland  to 
Cape  Hatteras,  is  full  of  inlets,  bays,  outlying  islands, 
peninsulas,  and  harbours,  admirably  fit  for  shipping. 
The  rivers  of  North  America  are  the  largest  in  the 
world.  The  Mississippi  and  Missouri  spread  their 
countless  arms  over  a  basin  twelve  times  the  size  of 
Great  Britain.  Some  of  their  branches  are  mighty 
rivers,  and  the  two  main  streams  are  navigable  for 
more  than  4,500  miles  from  the  sea.  The  St.  Law- 
rence, the  Hudson,  Susquehanna,  Delaware,  Potomac, 
and  James,  are  fine  navigable  rivers,  with  large  cities 
on  their  banks  or  at  their  mouths.  In  climate  North 
America  is  less  happy  than  England.  Owing  to 
the  size  of  the  continent,  and  the  consequent  dis- 
tance of  its  interior  from  the  sea,  as  well  as  its 
direct  connection  with  the  Arctic  regions,  the  heat  in 
summer  and  the  cold  in  winter  are  greater  than  they 
are  with  us  ;  and  the  enormous  scale  of  the  rivers 
exposes  them  to  floods  and  other  drawbacks  which 


62  GEOGRAPHY. 

would  seriously  interfere  with  commerce,  but  for  the 
indomitable  energy  and  activity  of  the  people. 

THE  OCEAN. 

90.  So  far  for  a  general  rough  idea  of  the  nature 
and  position  of  the  dry  land  of  the  world.  About  its 
various  masses,  round  the  peninsulas  and  headlands, 
into  the  bays  and  gulfs,  and  through  the  straits  and 
passages,  circulates  the  wide  and  ever-flowing  ocean, 
filling  up  the  deep  hollows  between  the  continents 
and  islands,  distributing  warmth  and  life  throughout, 
and  affording  a  ready  means  of  communication  all 
over  the  world. 

91.  I  have  already  said  that  it  is  estimated  to 
cover  145  millions  of  square  miles,  about  three 
times  the  surface  of  the  land.  This  great  body  of 
water  is  one  and  undivided.  True,  Africa,  South 
America,  and  Australia  do,  as  we  have  seen,  pro- 
ject down  towards  the  South  Pole,  and  hinder  the 
waves  from  flowing  straight  on  from  east  to  west 
or  west  to  east,  but  the  waves  make  their  way  round 
these  obstacles,  and  every  particle  of  the  surface 
water  probably  visits  in  turn  every  part  of  the  ocean, 
and  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  shore.  Through 
Behring's  Strait  and  Baffin's  Bay  and  the  seas  of 
Greenland  and  Kara,  currents  are  constantly  running 
to  interchange  the  warm  water  of  the  Equator  with 
the  cold  water  of  the  Poles.  Even  in  such  enclosed 
places  as  the  Baltic,  the  Red  Sea,  and  the  Mediter- 
ranean, there  is  always  a  current  running  in  and 
another  current  running  out. 

92.  But  though  all  one  great  body  of  water,  the 
gea  naturally  divides  itself  on  the  map  into  five  main 


THE  ATLANTIC.  63 

portions — the  Atlantic,  the  Pacific,  the  Indian,  the 
Arctic,  and  the  Antarctic  Oceans. 

93.  The  Atlantic  is  the  one  which  most  nearly 
concerns  us.  It  forms  the  channel  between  Europe 
and  Africa  on  the  one  hand,  and  America  on  the  other. 
In  general  form  it  is  long  and  winding,  the  coasts 
on  one  side  curiously  answering  in  outline  to  those 
on  the  other.  From  north  to  south,  from  Iceland  to 
Cape  Horn,  it  is  8,000  miles  long.  Its  northern 
portion,  say  between  Lisbon  and  New  York,  is  3,400 
miles  wide.  Between  Sierra  Leone  on  the  coast  of 
Africa  and  the  opposite  shoulder  of  South  America 
it  narrows  to  less  than  1,800,  and  then  widens  south- 
ward, until  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Monte 
Video  it  is  4,300  miles. 

94.  Now  there  are  two  things  which  in  the  main 
give  an  ocean  importance  in  the  world,  and  an  ad- 
vantage over  another  ocean,  and  these  two  are  length 
of  coast-line  and  extent  of  basin,  that  is  of  rivers 
which  run  into  it  (see  §  200)  ;  both  add  to  its  com- 
merce, to  the  number  of  ships  which  sail  upon  it,  and 
of  people  who  live  by  it ;  and  both  of  these  the  Atlantic 
has  got  to  a  far  larger  extent  than  either  of  the  other 
oceans.  In  addition  to  the  long  smooth  shores  of 
Western  Africa  and  Eastern  South  America,  all  the  in- 
dentations and  windings  of  the  North  American  coast, 
the  Caribbean  Sea  and  Gulf  of  Mexico,  the  bays  and 
inlets  along  the  shores  of  the  United  States,  Nova 
Scotia,  Newfoundland,  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  all 
immensely  increase  the  length  of  the  coast,  and  the 
opportunity  for  shipping ;  even  Hudson's  Bay  and 
Strait  may  possibly  be  some  day  or  other  full  of 
inhabitants.  In  Europe  the  coasts  which  lie  open 
to  the  Atlantic  are  themselves  indented  and  winding 


64  GEOGRAPHY. 

enough,  and  full  of  harbours,  refuges,  and  estuaries ; 
but  add  to  these  the  extra  recesses,  hidden,  as  it  were, 
in  the  background,  of  the  Mediterranean,  Adriatic, 
and  Black  Sea,  the  Baltic,  Gulf  of  Finland,  and  Gulf 
of  Bothnia,  and  you  more  than  double  the  length. 
The  coast-line  of  the  Atlantic  on  the  whole  is  calcu- 
lated at  about  55,000  English  miles. 

95.  Closely  connected  with  this  is  the  area  of  its 
basin.  Owing  to  the  Andes  and  Rocky  mountains 
being  set  back  so  close  to  the  Pacific,  all  the  large 
rivers  of  South  America  and  the  greater  part  of  those 
of  North  America  run  eastward  into  the  Atlantic, 
which  thus  gets  the  lion's  share  of  the  supply.  In  fact 
it  takes  the  water  of  six-sevenths  of  the  whole  of 
America.  From  Europe,  chiefly  through  the  Baltic 
and  Mediterranean,  it  has  the  water  of  every  river 
except  the  Volga,  and  the  Mediterranean  enables  it 
to  get  the  Nile  from  Africa,  in  addition  to  the  Niger, 
the  Gambia,  and  other  large  rivers  outside  on  the 
coast.  The  amount  of  land  drained  by  all  these  rivers 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  is  estimated  at  19  millions 
of  square  miles,  2^  times  as  much  as  supplies  the 
Pacific,  though  the  Pacific  itself  is  much  larger  than 
the  Atlantic.  And  when  we  recollect  the  countless 
myriads  of  people  who  exist  on  a  large  part  of  these 
19  millions  of  square  miles — the  leading  nations  of 
the  world,  whose  welfare  and  occupations  are  all 
more  or  less  closely  connected  with  the  great  Atlantic 
and  dependent  on  it,  whose  lives  are  bound  up  with 
the  freight  of  its  vessels  and  the  letters  of  its  mails — 
we  shall  begin  to  realise  how  mighty  a  part  a  great 
ocean  may  play  in  the  world,  and  how  "  rivers"  and 
"  drainage  "  and  "  coast-line?  "  and  "  basins  "  can 
make  one  ocean  more  important  than  another. 


THE  PACIFIC.  65 

96.  The  Pacific  differs  from  the  Atlantic  in  almost 
every  respect,  except  that  it  is  an  ocean.  It  differs  in 
shape,  in  area,  in  extent  of  basin,  in  the  number 
and  character  of  its  islands.  In  shape  it  is  a  vast 
field  of  waters.  Instead  of  the  free  open  look  of  the 
Atlantic,  the  highway  of  the  world,  we  find  an  enor- 
mous bay,  closed  at  the  top,  except  by  the  narrow  inlet 
of  Behring's  Strait,  and  barred  across  a  large  portion 
of  its  width  by  a  confused  crowd  of  islands.  Its  coasts 
are  formed  by  the  long  mountain-line  of  America  on 
the  east,  and  the  archipelago  of  Australasia  and  Japan 
on  the  west.  From  North  to  South — the  Aleutian 
islands  to  Cape  Horn — it  is  7,000  miles  ;  while  its 
width  at  the  Equator  is  of  the  enormous  length  of 
more  than  10,000.  Its  area  is  estimated  at  more 
than  67  millions  of  square  miles — more  than  that 
of  all  the  dry  land  of  the  earth  put  together.  And 
yet,  though  its  area  is  so  large,  its  basin  is  computed  at 
not  half  that  of  the  Atlantic.  On  the  American  coast 
few  important  rivers  feed  it,  and  the  basin  is  hemmed  in 
by  the  Rocky  mountains  and  Andes.  On  the  Asiatic 
side  it  is  more  fortunate,  as  it  receives  the  Amoor,  and 
the  great  rivers  of  China,  Cambodia,  and  Malacca. 
It  is  surrounded  by  volcanoes — those  of  America  on 
the  east,  of  the  Sunda  and  Philippines  on  the  west, 
the  Kuriles  and  Aleutian  islands  on  the  north,  and 
of  the  Sandwich,  Marquesas,  and  Society  islands  in  its 
bosom.  Of  the  250  active  volcanoes  enumerated  by 
Humboldt,  226  are  in  and  around  this  ocean.  Another 
remarkable  feature  consists  in  its  coral  islands  and 
reefs,  of  which  there  are  vast  numbers  of  all  sizes, 
extending  over  more  than  100  degrees  of  longitude 
and  rising  from  enormous  depths. 

97.  Third    in   the    list    is    the    Indian    Ocean, 

C 


66  GEOGRAPHY. 


separated  from  the  Pacific  by  Australia  and  the  Asiatic 
Archipelago,  and  from  the  Atlantic  by  Africa,  and 
smaller  than  either  of  the  preceding.  It  is  truly  a 
double  bay  of  very  large  size,  which  forces  its  way  up 
into  the  land  by  the  two  lesser  bays  of  Arabia  and 
Bengal,  and  still  further  by  the  long  narrow  inlets  of 
the  Red  Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf.  The  Indian  Ocean 
is  estimatedio  cover  29  millions  of  miles.  Its  basin  is 
very  important,  being  nothing  less  than  the  whole  of 
India  and  Burmah,  including,  among  many  others,  the 
four  great  rivers,  Indus,  Ganges,  Brahmapootra,  and 
Irawady,  which  alone  discharge  the  waters  of  a  million 
and  a  quarter  of  square  miles  into  it,  as  well  as  the 
Tigris  and  Euphrates  from  Armenia,  and  the  Zambesi 
from  Africa.  This  ocean  also  contains  coral  reefs  and 
islands,  though  not  nearly  so  many  as  the  Pacific  does. 
Its  most  striking  feature  lies  in  its  periodical  winds, 
called  monsoons,  which  take  the  place  of  the  trade- 
winds  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific,  are  vital  to  the 
navigation,  and  have  a  great  effect  on  the  climate  of 
India.  It  is  also  much  exposed  to  tornadoes  or 
sudden  tempests  of  the  most  furious  and  destructive 
kind,  as  at  Midnapore,  in  1874,  when  3,000  people 
died  from  the  buffeting  of  the  wind  alone ;  and  to 
cyclone  waves  like  that  of  October  31st,  1876,  at 
Backergunge,  when  215,000  persons  perished  in  an 
hour. 

9S.  North  and  south  of  the  three  main  oceans 
lie  the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  portions  or  seas.  Of  the 
two  the  Arctic  is  the  best  known,  partly  because 
it  is  nearer  home,  partly  because  it  is  more  accessible. 
Here,  as  often  elsewhere,  commerce  led  the  way. 
North-Polar  exploration  began  from  the  early  en- 
deavour to   find   a  "  North-west    Passage  "  for   the 


ARCTIC   OCEAN.  67 

Indian  trade.  Greenland,  Nova  Zembla,  Spitzbergen, 
and  the  north  coasts  of  Siberia  and  of  North  America, 
which  surround  the  North  Pole,  have  been  to  a  great 
extent  explored  and  mapped  as  far  north  as  latitude 
830  20'  27".  There  are  even  inhabitants  up  to  8i°; 
the  summer,  though  short,  is  warm,  and  vegetation 
and  animals  feeding  on  it  have  been  found  as  far 
as  830.  The  Arctic  Expedition  of  1875  killed  musk- 
oxen,  hares,  and  ptarmigan,  in  latitude  820.  The  ice- 
bergs, which  during  the  warmer  months  move  down 
from  Baffin's  Bay,  cling  to  the  coast  of  Labrador  and 
Newfoundland,  and  are  rarely  seen  in  the  open  ocean 
south  of  Halifax  (lat.  440  39'),  or  farther  east  than 
40"  W.  longitude,  and  there  are  fast  melting  away  from 
the  influence  of  the  Gulf  Stream.  Whereas  in  the 
south  the  icebergs  advance  across  the  whole  ocean  as 
far  as  450  and  even  400  S.  latitude,  and  make  navi- 
gation very  hazardous  beyond  that  line.  They  even 
drift  as  far  as  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  a  latitude 
equivalent  to  that  of  Gibraltar.  In  Chili  glaciers 
come  down  to  the  sea  at  a  latitude  equal  to  that  of 
Venice.  On  the  few  islands  found  in  the  Antarctic 
Sea,  the  vegetation  is  of  the  lowest  forms,  and  the 
only  animal  life,  birds  and  seals.  The  Antarctic 
continent  surrounding  the  South  Pole,  has  been  esti- 
mated at  twice  the  size  of  Europe.  Portions  of  it 
have  been  seen  at  Victoria  Land,  with  its  two  great 
volcanoes,  Erebus  and  Terror — and  at  Graham  and 
Enderby  Land ;  but  the  great  bulk  of  it  is  hidden 
behind  an  impenetrable  wall  of  permanent  ice.  Even 
in  summer  the  temperature  of  the  air  is  never  above 
the  freezing-point,  and  the  snow  there  never  thaws. 

99.  One  main  reason  of  this  difference   between 
the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  Seas  lies  in  the  currents 

c  2 


GEOGRAPHY. 


which  exist  in  the  ocean,  and  the  greater  circulation 
of  warm  water  in  the  former  of  the  two.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  sea  is  never  still; 
but  many  may  not  be  aware  that  the  waves  do  not 
always  move  forward  when  they  seem  to  do  so, 
and  that  unless  a  current  is  running  in  the 
water,  the  waves  only  move  up  and  down,  and  not 
forward,  when  the  sea  is  agitated.  But  there  are 
currents  in  the  sea,  running  through  it  with  definite 
breadth,  just  as  if  they  were  rivers ;  and  there  are 
the  Tides,  which  are  an  essential  part  of  the  ocean  j 
and  there  are  also  winds  which  blow  constantly,  or 
for  certain  seasons,  in  steady  directions  over  it ;  and 
these  must  all  be  understood  if  we  wish  to  know  about 
the  sea. 

ioo.  Of  the  winds,  the  chief  are  the  trade- winds 
and  the  monsoons.  The  trade-winds  are  perennial, 
that  is  they  blow  during  the  entire  year  in  one  general 
direction,  a  regular  steady  wind  from  east  to  west. 
This  they  do  in  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  from  one 
year's  end  to  another,  in  a  width  or  belt  of  about 
30  degrees  on  each  side  of  the  Equator.  These 
winds  are  great  helps  to  navigation,  but  before  the 
invention  of  steamers  they  were  all-important,  and 
in  fact  got  their  name  from  the  assistance  they  gave 
to  trade.  Every  ship  which  sailed  from  Europe  to 
the  West  Indies,  the  Brazils,  India,  or  Peru,  had  to 
pass  through  "the  Trades ;"  and  during  some  50  or  60 
degrees  of  latitude  was  likely  there  to  find  a  pretty 
steady  wind  to  help  it  on  its  course.  And  the  same 
for  those  who  sailed  between  the  West  Coast  of 
America  and  China  or  India.  The  trade-winds  have 
left  their  mark  on  the  map  of  the  West  Indies  in  the 
names   of  the  "  Windward  islands "  and  "  Leeward 


TRADE-WINDS.     MONSOONS.     CURRENTS.     69 

islands  ;"  the  former  being  those  from  Trinidad  to 
Martinique,  which  directly  meet  the  wind,  and  the 
latter  those  from  Dominica  to  Porto  Rico,  which 
slope  away  from  it. 

1 01.  In  the  Indian  Ocean  also  the  wind  blows  from 
east  to  west  from  November  to  March  ;  but  from 
April  to  October,  owing  perhaps  to  the  heat  accu- 
mulated on  the  mainland  during  the  solstice,  it  turns 
round  and  blows  from  the  south-west,  and  in  so  doing 
brings  the  rain  on  the  coast  of  India.  This  is  called 
in  India  the  monsoon,  and  such  an  alternating  or 
changing  wind  is  called  periodical. 

102.  Connected  with  the  winds  are  the  ocean 
currents,  which,  though  partly  springing  from  other 
causes,  are  much  influenced  by  their  constant  blowing. 
There  are  few  parts  of  the  ocean  in  which  a  current 
is  not  to  be  found  running  as  fast  as  10  miles  a 
day,  and  sometimes  much  faster.  The  chief  are  the 
equatorial  currents,  which  flow  round  the  globe, 
or  wherever  the  land  will  let  them  flow,  in  the 
same  direction  as  the  trade-winds- -enormous  rivers 
coursing  through  the  ocean.  In  the  Atlantic  one  of 
these  great  streams  starts  from  St.  Thomas  on  the 
coast  of  Africa,  and  runs  westward  towards  the 
shoulder  of  South  America.  Before  arriving  there  it 
throws  off  a  branch  to  the  south,  which  goes  along 
down  the  coast  of  Brazil  to  the  southern  end  of 
South  America,  and  there  turns  to  the  eastward 
towards  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  But  this  is  not  a 
very  important  current. 

103.  The  main  stream  is  very  much  larger  and 
more  important ;  indeed  to  us  it  is  nearly  the  most 
important  thing  in  the  world.  It  runs  nearly  due  west, 
about  5  degrees  or  350  miles  wide,  and  at  a  pace  of 


7o  GEOGRAPHY. 


from  20  to  50  miles  a  day.  It  sweeps  past  the  north 
coast  of  South  America  with  such  strength  that  not  even 
the  immense  streams  rushing  out  of  the  Amazons  and 
Orinoco  rivers  are  enough  to  turn  it  aside ;  passes 
through  the  Windward  islands,  across  the  Caribbean 
Sea,  and  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  an  enormous  ocean 
lake  with  only  two  outlets,  hemmed  in  by  mountains, 
and  exposed  to  the  full  heat  of  the  tropical  sun.  As 
the  current  sweeps  round  the  Gulf  it  becomes  very 
hot,  and  is  swollen  by  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi, 
till  at  length  it  forces  its  way  out  into  the  Atlantic 
between  Florida  and  Cuba  in  a  stream  of  from  30  to 
40  miles  wide  and  600  or  700  feet  deep,  and  at  a 
pace  of  about  80  miles  a  day.  The  Thames  at 
London  Bridge  is  barely  900  feet  wide,  and  the  sea  from 
Dover  to  Calais  is  2 1  miles.  These  two  dimensions 
will  help  you  to  understand  what  an  immense  body  of 
water  the  Gulf  Stream  is.  Its  heat  when  it  leaves  the 
Gulf  is  from  75 °  to  85 °  Fahr.  At  first  it  keeps  pretty 
close  to  the  coast  of  America,  but  by  degrees  widens 
out  and  bears  away  to  the  east,  running  between 
Newfoundland  and  the  Azores.  There  it  parts ;  the 
main  body  turns  round  the  Azores  and  goes  off  south- 
ward between  those  islands  and  Spain,  down  to  the 
African  coast.  The  other  portion  runs  on  northward 
between  Great  Britain  and  Iceland,  bestowing  warmth 
and  moisture  on  Cornwall,  Ireland,  the  Hebrides,  and 
the  Shetland  islands,  as  it  goes,  and  throwing  forward 
a  stream  which  bears  the  weeds  and  seeds  of  the 
New  World  as  far  as  the  coast  of  Norway  and  even 
Spitzbergen,  and  perhaps  even  the  North  Pole. 

104.  This  is  the  famous  Gulf  Stream,  which  is 
poured  out  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  as  out  of  a  vast 
tank  of  hot  water,  to  cherish  and  fertilise  the  shores  of 


THE   GULF  STREAM.  71 

European  and  even  Arctic  countries,  thousands  of 
miles  distant  from  its  source.  This  it  is  which  makes 
the  astonishing  difference  in  climate  between  our 
shores  and  those  of  North  America  in  the  same 
latitudes  ;  which  enables  myrtles,  oleanders,  and 
oranges  to  flourish  in  the  open  air  on  the  coast  of 
Cornwall,  while  Newfoundland  in  the  same  latitude 
is  shut  in  with  icebergs  ;  gives  us  a  beautiful  verdant 
country  like  the  Western  Highlands  in  place  of  the 
iron-bound  coast  of  Labrador ;  and  causes  the  ex- 
traordinary fact  that  no  polar  ice  has  ever  been  known 
to  visit  the  North  Cape  of  Norway,  in  latitude  720,  the 
same  latitude  with  Disco  island,  on  the  west  coast  of 
Greenland,  which  may  be  called  the  home  of  ice- 
bergs. But  the  northward  motion  of  the  Gulf  Stream 
necessitates  a  southward  motion  from  the  Polar  Seas. 
Immediately  beneath  the  Gulf  Stream,  and  on  the 
inner  or  land  side  of  it,  runs  a  current  of  cold  water 
from  past  Labrador,  to  replace  the  warm  water  brought 
up  from  the  tropics ;  and  below  that  again  is  found 
a  still  colder  stratum,  which  has  probably  travelled  up 
the  bed  of  the  Atlantic  from  the  Southern  Pole. 
Such  and  so  constant  is  the  motion  and  interchange 
throughout  the  water  of  the  sea. 

105.  In  the  Pacific  also  there  is  a  great  equatorial 
current  which  starts  from  the  Bay  of  Panama  and  runs 
right  across  the  ocean,  past  the  Caroline  and  Ladrone 
islands  to  the  Philippines.  There  it  is  met  by  a  cur- 
rent which  issues  from  the  China  Sea  much  as  the  Gulf 
Stream  does  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  the  two 
then  run  outside  of  Japan,  and  round  the  northern 
limits  of  the  Pacific,  and  so  down  again  to  California. 

106.  In  the  Indian  Ocean  the  main  current  starts 
from  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  sweeps  past  Ceylon  and  the 


72  GEOGRAPHY. 


Seychelles  islands,  and  between  Africa  and  Madagascar 
to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  There  it  is  suddenly 
checked,  partly  by  the  Agulhas  bank  and  partly  by 
the  sudden  cold  of  the  Southern  Ocean,  and  turned 
back  to  the  south-west  towards  Kerguelen  island. 

107.  There  are  many  other  currents  besides  those 
named,  but  these  are  the  chief,  and  will  give  an  idea 
of  the  ceaseless  change  going  on  in  the  ocean. 
For  wherever  water  is  moved  away,  other  water  must 
naturally  come  in  to  take  its  place. — And  thus  what  I 
said  before  is  true,  that  every  particle  of  water  probably 
visits  in  turn  every  part  of  the  world. 

108.  The  sea  is  however  stirred  to  its  lowest  depths 
twice  every  day  by  a  movement  of  a  different  kind  to 
those  just  spoken  of.  The  currents  are  the  earth's 
own  action.  They  are  caused  by  the  natural  tendency 
of  warm  and  cold  water  to  change  places,  helped 
by  the  rotation  of  the  earth,  and  by  the  force  of 
winds  blowing  constantly  one  way  on  the  surface. 
But  the  tides  come  entirely  from  outside — the  earth 
herself  has  nothing  to  do  with  them,  any  more  than 
she  has  with  her  spinning  round  the  sun ;  and  they 
move  the  ocean  to  its  deepest  recesses. 

109.  They  are  the  rise  formed  in  the  water  of  the  sea 
by  the  attraction  of  the  sun  and  moon,  principally  of 
the  moon.  The  moon  attracts  all  things  on  the  earth, 
pulls  them  towards  it  j  and  water  being  fluid  changes 
its  shape  as  it  is  pulled,  and  rises  up  towards  the 
moon  in  a  large  heap  or  wen.  But  as  the  earth  is 
spinning  round  all  the  time,  the  water  is  carried 
on  and  will  not  rise  quite  in  the  same  shape  that 
it  would  if  it  were  at  rest,  but  gets  spread  out  into  a 
broad  flat  wave.  This  tidal-wave  goes  travelling  along 
over  the  surface  of  the  sea,  following  the  moon,  and 


THE   TIDES.  73 


always  two  or  three  hours  behind  it ;  and  as  it  comes 
to  the  various  places  along  the  coast  it  forms  high 
tide  there.  The  moon  raises  a  similar  heap  of 
water  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  world  at  the  same 
time  ;  so  that  there  are  always  two  tidal-waves  going 
round  at  once,  each  half  a  day  apart.  The  sun  also 
attracts  the  water,  though,  from  being  so  far  off,  much 
less  than  the  moon  does.  When  the  two  come  in  a 
line  and  pull  together — that  is  at  full  moon  and  new 
moon — the  tide  is  highest,  and  is  called  spring 
tide  *.  when  they  are  at  right  angles  to  one  another 
— that  is  at  the  moon's  quarters — the  tide  is  lowest, 
and  is  neap  tide. 

no.  This  is  the  general  principle  of  the  tides, 
but  it  is  very  much  interfered  with  by  the  form  of 
the  coast,  the  depth  of  the  sea,  the  friction  of  the 
water  on  itself  and  on  the  shore,  the  action  of  wind, 
the  ocean  currents,  and  many  other  things.  The 
original  height  of  the  tide-wave — the  heap  of  water 
raised  by  the  moon — is  from  3  to  4  feet,  and 
that  is  the  rise  of  the  tide  in  the  open  ocean  of 
the  Pacific ;  but  where  there  is  a  bay  or  inlet  with 
high  steep  walls  the  water  will  force  its  way  in,  and 
rise  much  higher.  In  the  Bristol  Channel,  which  is 
like  a  funnel  with  its  mouth  turned  outwards  to  the 
ocean,  the.  tides  are  forced  up  as  high  as  30,  and,  at 
Chepstow,  50  feet ;  and  in  the  Bay  of  Fundy,  in 
Nova  Scotia,  to  70,  80,  and  even  100.  On  the  coast 
of  Jutland,  in  the  German  Ocean,  owing  to  the  tide- 
wave  from  the  north  meeting  that  from  the  south, 
round  Great  Britain,  there  is  little  or  no  variation, 
but  perpetual  high  water.  You  will  find  all  this 
explained  at  length  in  the  Elementary  Lessons  in 
Astronomy  (§§659-667).  I  have  mentioned  it  because 

c  * 


74  GEOGRAPHY. 


no  account  of  the  ocean  can  be  complete  without 
some  description  of  the  tides. 

in.  The  surface  of  the  ocean  has  been  pretty  well 
known  for  a  long  time,  but  the  inside  of  it — its 
depths,  the  shape  and  nature  of  the  bottom,  the  heat 
at  various  depths,  how  the  deep  currents  run,  anil 
where  the  various  layers  of  warm  and  cold  water 
come  from  and  go  to — these  have  only  been  begun 
to  be  found  out  quite  lately.  The  Americans  took  the 
lead.  Captain  Maury,  of  the  U.S.  navy,  was  the  first 
investigator,  and  was  followed  by  the  U.S.  surveying  and 
sounding  expedition  of  the  Tuscarora  (1873-76).  The 
Germans  sent  out  the  Gazelle  in  1875.  Among  our 
own  expeditions  were  those  of  the  Bulldog,  Porcupine, 
and  Lightning,  from  i860  to  1870,  and  lastly  that  of  the 
Challenger  man-of-war  (1874-76),  of  which  Sir  George 
Nares  was  commander  (till  he  was  sent  to  the  North 
Pole  in  1875),  and  Sir  Wyville  Thomson  chief  of 
the  scientific  department.  In  the  Atlantic,  soundings 
enough  have  been  taken  to  enable  a  general  rough  map 
of  the  bottom  to  be  made,  of  which  I  have  attempted 
to  give  you  a  view,  as  if  the  water  were  all  away, 
and  the  dry  bed  could  be  seen. 

112.  It  shews  the  bed  of  the  ocean  from  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Iceland  to  consist  of  a  ridge 
running  pretty  nearly  midway  between  America, 
Europe,  and  Africa,  and  following  in  a  general  way  the 
winding  of  those  continents.  This  ridge  rises  to  within 
8,500  or  10,000  feet  of  the  waves.  On  each  side  of 
it,  west  and  east,  there  is  a  valley,  which  sinks  in  some 
places  as  fat  as  19,000,  21,000,  and  even  23,000  feet 
below  the  waves.  Of  the  two  valleys,  the  eastern  one 
passes  east  of  the  Azores,  and  round  the  outside  of 
Ireland.     Off  Newfoundland  the  western  valley  parts  : 


BED   OF  THE  ATLANTIC. 


76  GEOGRAPHY. 


one  fork  leads  into  Davis's  Strait,  the  other  runs  on  to 
Iceland.  The  three  deepest  spots  known  are  south- 
east of  Bermuda,  off  Porto  Rico,  and  midway  between 
South  America  and  South  Africa.  South  of  S.  lat.  30 
the  depths  are  comparatively  moderate,  not  greater 
than  16,000  and  17,000  feet,  and  rarely  as  great. 

113.  Although  the  general  level  of  the  ridge  is  8,000 
or  10,000  feet  below  the  waves,  yet  here  and  there 
it  rises  far  above  them.  The  Azores,  Ascension,  and 
St.  Helena,  are  peaks  of  this  ridge,  and  tower 
above  the  adjoining  valleys  to  a  height  of  more  than 
20,000  feet.  The  Cape  de  Verde  islands,  the 
Canaries,  and  Madeira  stand  on  plateaus  of  theii 
own,  outliers  of  Africa.  Bermuda  is  also  off  the  ridge, 
and  curiously  isolated,  being  a  mountain  of  15,000 
feet  high,  with  a  base  over  100  miles  wide,  standing 
on  ground  which  seems  to  fall  away  on  each  side,  and 
to  have  no  other  high  land  in  sight,  nearer  than  the 
American  coast,  600  miles  off. 

114.  To  get  some  idea  of  the  general  nature  of  the 
ocean  bed  let  us  take  the  lowest  levels  of  the  valleys 
just  named  as  a  starting-point — equivalent  to  the 
"level  of  the  sea"  from  which  the  heights  of  mountains 
on  dry  land  are  calculated.  We  shall  find  that  the 
Peak  of  Teneriffe,  which  rises  12,180  feet  above  the 
ocean,  if  the  sea  were  dry  would  really  stand  up 
34,900  feet  above  the  bottom ;  while  in  the  Azores  and 
Cape  de  Verde  islands  there  are  several  peaks  that 
would  soar  to  28,000  and  30,000  feet  above  the 
ocean  bed.  None  of  these  would  seem  to  have  any 
sudden  rise,  indeed  their  slopes  appear  to  be  gentler 
than  those  of  the  European  mountains. 

115.  We  may  further  obtain  a  comparative  idea  of 
the  height  of  the  submarine  mountains  of  the  Atlantic 


BED   OF  THE   OCEAN.  77 

by  supposing  that  Europe  and  Asia  were  covered  by 
the  ocean  to  a  depth  of  23,000  feet  above  tne  lowest 
ground,  that  being  the  greatest  depth  yet  obtained  by 
sounding.  In  this  case  not  a  vestige  of  land  would  be 
seen  in  Europe.  The  summit  of  Mont  Blanc  would 
be  buried  5,000  feet  below  the  surface,  and  the  highest 
of  the  Pyrenees  more  than  11,000.  Ararat  would  be 
nowhere ;  and  the  first  land  which  would  meet  the  view 
would  be  the  group  of  islets  formed  by  16  or  18  of  the 
highest  mountains  in  the  Himalayas  and  Tibet  as  they 
rose  above  the  waves,  some  just  emerging  and  others 
reaching  a  height  of  about  7,000  feet. 

1 1 6.  The  Pacific  has  been  less  extensively  sounded 
than  the  Atlantic,  but  some  extraordinary  depths  have 
been  discovered  there  —  one  south  of  the  Ladrone 
islands,  of  27,450  feet;  another  off  the  Kurile  islands, 
of  27,930  feet ;  and  a  third  outside  the  centre  island 
of  Japan,  where  27,858  feet  of  line  was  let  out  with- 
out finding  bottom.  Fusi-yama  in  Japan  is  14,177 
feet  above  the  water,  so  that  the  total  height  of  its 
snowy  cap  from  the  bed  of  the  sea  must  be  at  least 
42,100  feet,  or  8  miles;  that  is,  2^  miles  higher 
than  the  highest  of  the  Himalayas  above  the  ocean 
level. 

117.  On  the  heat  of  the  ocean  a  great  deal  has 
been  revealed  by  the  Challenger's  expedition,  and  the 
general  result,  exclusive  of  such  special  features  as  the 
Gulf  Stream,  may  be  summed  up  as  follows.  In  all 
three  oceans,  within  the  Torrid  and  Temperate  Zones, 
the  bottom  of  the  sea  is  covered,  as  a  rule,  with  a  stratum 
2,000  to  3,000  feet  thick  of  cold  water,  varying  from 
freezing-point  to  3  degrees  above  it  (320  to  35? 
Fahr.).  In  the  Pacific  this  stratum  lies  at  about  9,000 
feet  below  the  surface,  and  there  is  a  line,  at  2,500  or 


78  GEOGRAPHY. 


3,000  feet  from  the  surface,  below  which  the  water  is 
almost  uniformly  400.  Both  in  the  Pacific  and  Indian 
Oceans  it  appears  to  be  proved  that  this  cold  bottom 
stratum  comes  from  the  Antarctic  Pole.  And  even  in 
the  Atlantic,  so  much  more  open  to  the  north  than 
either  of  the  others,  the  Antarctic  water  forces  its  way 
along  the  ground  beyond  the  Equator.  North  of  the 
Equator  the  bed  of  the  central  Atlantic  becomes  slightly 
warmer,  but  it  is  not  till  the  north  of  Scotland  is  passed 
that  the  bottom  cold  stratum  appears  to  be  supplied 
from  the  North  Pole.  The  heat  of  the  surface  varies 
with  the  latitude  and  the  time  of  year.  In  the  enclosed 
sea  of  the  Indian  Archipelago,  in  January,  February, 
and  March,  1875,  it  varied  from  750  to  840  Fahr.,  with 
an  average  of  817°. 

118.  In  the  Temperate  and  Torrid  Zones  at  the 
depth  of  12  or  14,000  feet  the  bottom  appears  to  be 
generally  covered  with  mud  consisting  of  the  shells 
or  skeletons  of  very  small  creatures  (globigerina), 
similar  to  those  by  which  the  chalk  of  our  cliffs  and 
downs  has  been  formed.  In  the  deeper  valleys  the 
bottom  is  a  red  clay  with  no  remains  of  organisms.. 
In  the  Polar  regions  the  mud  of  the  bottom  appears 
to  be  pure  flint. 

119.  Now  this  immense  addition  to  our  scientific 
knowledge,  to  what  is  it  due  ?  To  Commerce.  It  is 
Commerce  which  has  called  in  Science  and  given  it 
this  splendid  opportunity  of  enriching  itself.  For  the 
depths  of  the  ocean  would  never  have  been  sounded 
as  they  have  been,  and  so  many  valuable  and  pregnant 
facts  extracted  from  them,  if  it  had  not  been  necessary 
for  business  purposes  to  find  the  best  line  across  the 
bottom  for  the  Atlantic  electric  cable.  So  let  no  one 
depreciate  commerce,  or  call  it  ignoble  or  sordid  ! 


THE  SALT  WATER.  79 

120.  The  water  in  the  sea  is  salt  throughout.  It 
is  rather  heavier  than  fresh  water,  its  specific  gravity 
being  1*026;  that  is  to  say,  a  gallon  of  sea  water 
instead  of  weighing  10  lb.  as  a  gallon  of  fresh  water 
does,  would  weigh  10*26  or  a  trifle  over  ioj^  lb.  In 
the  Baltic,  where  so  many  rivers  flow  in,  and  about 
the  Equator  where  there  is  so  much  rain,  it  is  much 
less  salt,  and  therefore  lighter.  In  the  Mediterranean, 
on  the  other  hand,  where  a  great  deal  of  evaporation 
goes  on,  and  the  sea  is  enclosed,  it  becomes  Salter  and 
heavier.  The  rivers  and  streams  are  always  at  work 
wearing  down  the  land,  and  carrying  the  fragments  of 
its  mountains  and  continents  into  the  sea;  and  the  sea 
in  like  manner  is  always  employed  in  washing  over  and 
over  the  materials  thus  brought  into  it.  And  as  this 
has  been  going  on  for  millions  of  years,  the  sea  water 
must  contain  all  the  substances  which  once  formed  those 
materials  and  can  be  dissolved  in  cold  water— in  other 
words,  every  soluble  substance  in  nature.  This  is  why 
the  sea  is  salt.  The  chief  ingredient  in  it  is  common 
salt,  and  salts  of  magnesia  and  lime  are  also  plentiful. 
A  very  small  trace  of  silver  is  also  found,  and  it  gives 
a  startling  idea  of  the  vastness  of  the  ocean  to  know 
that  this  minute,  hardly  perceptible  quantity,  if  it  could 
be  all  collected,  would  yield  two  million  tons  of  that 
metal,  equal  in  value  to  ^£13,440,000,000,  seventeen 
times  the  National  Debt. 

FEATURES   OF  THE   EARTH. 

T21.  I  have  now  done  my  best  to  give  you  a  general 
idea  of  the  shape,  situation,  and  character  of  the 
dry  land  of  the  earth,  and  of  the  most  striking 
peculiarities  of  the  ocean.  We  will  end  by  going 
through  what  may  be  called  the  principal  features  of 


80  GEOGRAPHY. 

the  face  of  the  earth,  its  mountains  and  rivers,  capes, 
isthmuses,  promontories,  and  other  portions  of  its 
surface,  and  seeing  what  hints  we  can  gain  from  such 
an  examination  of  them. 

122.  A  continent  is  the  mainland  of  the  world,  as 
distinguished  from  islands  which  though  large  are  still 
evidently  surrounded  by  the  sea.  Australia,  though 
an  island,  is  so  much  larger  than  other  islands,  that  it 
too  is  called  a  continent.  Indeed,  it  is  within  one 
seventh  part  as  large  as  Europe  itself. — Living  as  we 
do  in  an  island,  we  often  speak  of  the  mainland  of 
Europe  as  "  the  continent,"  and  of"  continental  trade," 
"  continental  customs,"  a  "  continental  tour,"  &c. 

123.  Strictly  speaking  the  whole  of  the  Old  World 
is  one  continent.  Africa  is  cut  off  from  Asia  by  the 
Red  Sea  and  the  Suez  Canal,  though  the  interval  is  a 
very  narrow  one,  but  the  division  between  Europe  and 
Asia  is  purely  artificial.  Nevertheless,  the  distinction 
between  the  continents  has  been  so  long  recognised, 
and  is  grounded  on  so  real  a  difference  in  the  nature 
of  the  three,  that  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  America 
will  probably  be  called  the  four  quarters  of  the 
globe  as  long  as  the  world  lasts.     (§86.) 

124.  The  word  continental  is  sometimes  applied 
to  the  drainage  of  the  high  central  district  of  Asia, 
and  other  regions  in  America  which  are  shut  out  from 
the  ocean,  and  "  contain "  their  own  drainage,  the 
rivers  running  not  into  the  sea  but  into  inland  lakes. 

(§740 

125.  Island,  land  surrounded  by  water — set  in 
the  water,  as  the  eye  is  set  in  the  face.  The  word  is 
not  from  isle,  but  from  *ey,  as  in  Anglesey,  Selsey, 

*£y  =  island.  The  spelling  ea,  as  in  Anglesea,  Chelsea,  Portsea,  is  wrong. 


ISLANDS.  8 1 


Orkney ;  or  oe,  as  in  Faroe ;  and  we  still  use  it  in 
eyot  or  ait  for  the  island  near  Chiswick  and  other 
islands  in  the  Thames.  The  world  has  been  some- 
times said  to  consist  of  two  large  islands,  Europe, 
Asia,  and  Africa  in  one,  and  America  in  the  other, 
as  each  is  completely  surrounded  by  water  ;  but  these 
large  masses  of  land  are  always  called  continents.  So 
is  Australia.  The  largest  island  is  Borneo,  and  the 
next  New  Guinea.  Great  Britain  ranks  seventh  in 
the  scale.  One  of  the  smallest  inhabited  ones  is 
perhaps  Heligoland,  which,  though  but  a  third  of 
the  size  of  Hyde  Park,  and  boasting  only  a  single  tree, 
contains  2,800  inhabitants. 

126.  Islands  are  the  tops  of  mountains  rising  from 
the  bottom  of  the  sea,  in  many  cases  very  high  moun- 
tains. Bermuda  rises  from  a  depth  of  15,000  feet,  with 
no  other  known  eminence  on  either  side  nearer  than 
600  miles,  much  as  if  Mont  Blanc  were  planted  quite 
alone  in  the  middle  of  Russia.  The  Antilles,  or 
small  islands  of  the  West  Indies,  rise  from  ground 
which  in  many  places  is  from  15,000  to  20,000  feet 
below  the  water,  and  as  they  stand  from  3,000  to 
6,000  feet  above  it  must  represent  a  truly  magnifi- 
cent chain  of  mountains.  The  Azores  are  a  group 
of  from  10,000  to  16,000  feet  high,  standing  upon  a 
plateau  of  about  700  miles  in  diameter,  itself  rising  to 
a  height  of  more  than  6,000  feet  above  the  general 
level  of  the  ocean  bed.  This  would  make  the  height 
of  the  Pico  (which  is  7,613  feet  above  the  ocean) 
fully  22,000  feet  in  all  above  the  great  valley  of  the 
Atlantic  bed,  and  the  others  in  proportion. 

127.  The  Canaries  would  form  a  splendid  outpost  to 
Africa.  If  the  sea  were  to  retire,  the  three  islands  of 
Teneriffe,  Palma,  and  the  Gran  Canada  would  appear 


82  GEOGRAPHY. 


as  peaks  towering  to  the  heights  of  23,000,  19,000, 
and  18,000  feet  above  their  bases.  In  the  Pacific  the 
Ladrone  islands  appear  to  rise  suddenly  to  a  height 
above  the  ocean  bed  of  between  27  and  28,000  feet ; 
while  Japan  and  the  Kurile  islands  to  the  N.E.  of  it 
must  be  even  yet  more  lofty. 

128.  The  great  islands  of  Borneo,  New  Guinea, 
and  others  which  lie  between  Australia  and  Asia  were 
probably  at  one  time  a  continuous  continent,  lying 
to  the  south  of  Asia,  much  as  South  America  does 
with  respect  to  North  America. 

129.  The  coral  islands,  with  few  exceptions,  are 
only  to  be  found  between  latitudes  30°  N.  and  300  S. 
of  the  Equator,  and  oftenest  in  the  Pacific  Ocean; 
they  appear  to  be  formed  on  the  tops  of  submarine 
eminences,  which  are  gradually  sinking  with  the  bed 
of  the  sea.  This  opinion  (Mr.  Darwin's)  is  grounded 
on  the  fact  that  the  creatures  which  make  the  coral 
can  only  work  between  the  surface  and  a  certain  depth 
(90  to  150  feet) ;  and  as  the  coral  goes  down  much  be- 
yond that  depth,  it  is  inferred  that  the  islands  have 
been  gradually  sinking  so  as  to  allow  the  animals  to 
keep  adding  to  the  top,  as  they  are  still  doing.  The 
coral  usually  forms  a  round  ring  from  one  to  thirty 
miles  diameter,  and  a  quarter  of  a  mile  or  so  in  width, 
enclosing  a  lagoon  of  water  with  one  doorway  to  the 
ocean,  on  the  leeward  side.  On  the  ring  earth 
gradually  collects,  and  palm-trees  grow.  Outside,  all 
is  noise  and  fury,  the  waves  of  the  ocean  breaking  on 
the  coral  in  tremendous  surf;  inside,  the  water  is 
perfectly  still  and  clear.  These  islands  are  called 
"  atolls." 

130.  When  coral  comes  near  the  surface,  but  not 


ARCHIPELAGO.     CAPE.  83 

above,  it  is  called  a  reef.  The  largest  of  these  is  the 
Great  Barrier  reef,  off  Queensland,  on  the  N.E.  coast 
of  Australia,  a  natural  breakwater  1,000  miles  long, 
which  protects  the  coast  from  a  terrible  sea,  and 
leaves  a  calm  still  channel  for  ships  within  it. 

131.  Archipelago  is  a  word  used  for  a  collection 
of  islands,  at  first  for  those  in  the  ^Egean  Sea,  between 
Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  and  afterwards  for  various 
other  groups,  such  as  the  Malay  Archipelago,  Borneo, 
Java,  Sumatra,  and  the  rest ;  the  Low  or  Dangerous 
Archipelago  in  the  South  Pacific,  and  the  Chagos 
Archipelago  in  the  Indian  Ocean.  In  the  two  last 
cases  the  groups  consist  partly  of  reefs  and  half- 
formed  islands. 

132.  Cape— that  is,  head — a  part  of  the  coast  run- 
ning out  into  the  sea,  usually  a  bold  headland,  the 
end  of  a  mountain,  sometimes  called  a  promontory. 
Such,  though  not  called  capes,  are  Beachy  Head, 
Flamborough  Head,  and  St.  David's  Head ;  and  such, 
but  much  larger,  is  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  which 
is  the  end  of  the  high  plateau  of  South  Africa.  Other 
famous  capes  are  Cape  Farewell,  at  the  south  point 
of  Greenland  j  North  Cape  (an  island),  the  extreme 
north  of  Europe ;  Cape  de  Verde,  the  west  cape  of 
Africa ;  St.  Vincent,  on  the  coast  of  Portugal ;  Finis- 
terre,  and  Trafalgar,  on  that  of  Spain.  Cape  Horn, 
the  southern  extremity  of  South  America,  is  an  island, 
one  of  the  group  off  the  mainland  which  forms  the 
Tierra  del  Fuego. 

133.  Where  the  point  of  land  is  low,  it  is  often 
called  ness — that  is,  a  nose ;  as  Dungeness,  which 
contrasts  well  with  Beachy  Head  ;  and  on  the  low 
coasts  of  Kent,  Essex,  and  Suffolk  we  find  Sheerness, 


84  GEOGRAPHY. 


Shoeburyness,  Foulness,  and  Orfordness,  and  even 
The  Naze.  The  name  came  from  the  Danes  or  the 
Northmen.  It  is  found  on  the  coast  of  Norway, 
and  on  that  of  Scotland,  which  they  frequented,  as 
naes  or  noss;  also  at  Grisnez,  opposite  Dungeness. 
On  the  south  coast  of  England  the  word  bill  is 
similarly  used,  as  Selsey  Bill,  Portland  Bill.  Other 
words  used  for  headlands  in  Scotland  are  mull  and 
butt. 

134.  Mountains  are  the  largest  eminences  of  a 
country,  and  hills  the  smaller  ones — as  we  say  the 
"  Welsh  mountains,"  and  the  "  Surrey  hills."  But  this 
distinction  is  not  always  kept  up.  The  "  Mount  of 
Olives  "  is  a  moderate-sized  hill,  and  the  "  Neilgherry 
Hills  "  are  mountains  more  than  8,000  feet  high.  In 
India,  again,  the  "  Hill  States  "  are  territories  high  up 
in  the  northern  mountains,  and  "  going  to  the  hills  " 
means  migrating  for  the  hot  season  to  Simla  or  Murree, 
which  lie  thousands  of  feet  up  on  the  spurs  of  the 
Himalayas.  Sometimes,  too,  a  collection  of  moun- 
tains is  called  a  "  mount,"  as  Mount  Lebanon,  which 
is  really  a  range  50  miles  long  and,  in  some  places, 
12,000  feet  high. 

135.  Mountains  may  be  single  and  independent,  like 
Etna  or  Vesuvius,  and  then  they  are  generally  vol- 
canoes. Or  they  may  be  connected  in  one  long 
range,  or  chain,  or  cordillera,  like  the  Pyrenees,  or  the 
Apennines,  and  the  Caucasus ;  or  in  a  double  chain 
of  two  parallel  main  ridges,  or  even  more,  each 
perhaps  a  hundred  miles  apart,  with  great  valleys 
and  table-lands  and  smaller  mountains  between 
them,  like  the  Northern  Andes  and  the  Rocky 
mountains,  between  the  ranges  of  which  lie  great 
countries  like  Mexico,  and  Peru,   and  Oregon ;    or 


MOUNTAINS.  8g 


like  the  Himalayas  and  Kuen-luns,  which  are  600 
miles  from  each  other,  and  have  between  them  the 
whole  region  of  Tibet.     Or  they  may  be   collected 


KUENLUNS 


Fig.  20. 

together  with  no  very  obvious  arrangement ;  like  the 
Alps,  which  include  the  groups  of  the  Oberland,  Mont 
Blanc,  Monte  Rosa,  the  Grisons,  and  the  Tyrol. 

136.  The  highest  mountains  in  the  world  are  the 
Himalayas,  where  there  are  four  peaks  rising  to 
29,002,  28,265,  28,156,  and  26,826  feet,  and  many 
others  nearly  as  high.  In  the  Andes  there  are  seven 
mountains  which  vary  from  25,250  to  15,931  feet. 
Mont  Blanc  is  15,784;  Ben  Nevis,  4,406;  Snowdon, 
3,590  feet.  It  must  be  remembered  that  these  heights 
are  all  measured  above  the  sea ;  whereas  the  moun- 
tains are  often  planted  inland,  on  considerably  higher 
ground ;  for  instance,  the  height  of  the  valley  of  Cha- 
mouni,  at  the  foot  of  Mont  Blanc,  is  3,500  feet,  which 
thus  takes  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  mile  off  the 
nominal  height  of  the  mountain.     But,   as  we   said 


86  GEOGRAPHY. 

before,  even  at  the  best  how  small  are  such  heights 
when  compared  with  the  earth's  diameter.  They  are 
no  more  than  the  heads  of  the  nails  which  fasten 
the  lead  to  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's  ;  and  if  you  were 
on  the  moon  looking  at  the  earth,  they  would  make 
no  difference  whatever  in  the  roundness  of  the  globe. 

137.  The  appearance  of  a  mountain  is  often  decep- 
tive. The  height  and  slope  appear  greater  than 
they  are  ;  the  rise  of  the  mountain  is  full  in  view,  and 
your  own  height  gives  you  a  vertical  measure  of  it, 
whereas  you  have  no  means  of  estimating  the  distance 
of  the  slope  from  you,  or  the  rate  at  which  it  slants 
away,  and  is  lost  in  the  distance.  Few  mountains  rise 
at  a  steeper  angle  than  450,  and  most  are  much  less. 
The  Peak  of  Teneriffe,  which,  from  the  harbour,  seems 
to  be  almost  over  your  head,  is  said  to  slope  only 
at  an  angle  of  120  30'.  (§67.)  You  read  in  books  of 
"  vertical  heights/'  and  of  mountains  "  overhanging  " 
a  town  or  a  valley.  These  words  may  convey  the 
appearance  of  the  spot  correctly,  and  the  effect  on  the 
mind  of  the  writer;  but  they  are  quite  inaccurate 
as  to  fact.  The  mountains  round  Innspruck,  when 
viewed  from  the  town  itself,  seem  almost  to  overhang 
the  streets,  and  enclose  it  like  the  sides  of  a  deep  cup ; 
but  they  are  really  many  miles  distant,  and  their 
slope  is  but  gradual. 

138.  The  crest  or  ridge  of  a  mountain  is  the 
general  line  of  its  range,  above  which  the  principal 
peaks  project.  Thus  the  general  or  mean  height  of 
the  Pyrenees  is  about  8,000  feet,  though  some  of  its 
summits  rise  to  more  than  11,000.  Sierra — a  saw — 
is  a  word  which  the  Spaniards  apply  to  a  range  of 
mountains,  such  as  the  Sierra  Nevada,  the  Sierra 
Sagra,  &c,  in  Spain,  Mexico,  and  South  America. 


PASSES.  87 

139.  Passes  are  notches  in  the  crest  of  a  moun- 
tain by  which  it  is  easiest  to  cross  from  one  side  to  the 
other ;  the  roads  of  the  Stelvio,  Simplon,  and  Splugen, 
by  which  we  cross  the  Alps  between  Switzerland  and 
Italy,  are  examples.  Other  passes  are  too  precipitous 
for  carriage  or  horse,  and  must  be  crossed  on  foot; 
such  are  the  S.  Theodule,  Col  de  Ge'ant,  &c.  The 
Khyber  and  Bolan  passes,  between  Hindostan  and 
Afghanistan,  were  the  scenes  of  some  of  the  great 
disasters  of  our  army  in  1841-42.  Some  of  the  passes 
in  the  Himalayas  by  which  the  merchants  go  from 
India  to  Kashgar,  Ladak,  or  Tibet,  are  as  much  as 
18,000  feet  high  above  the  sea;  that  is  they  have 
to  climb  that  height,  before  they  can  find  a  gap  allow- 
ing them  to  cross  from  the  south  to  the  north  side  of 
the  mountains. 

140.  The  heat  of  the  air  becomes  less  as  we  ascend 
a  mountain,  and  at  last  it  grows  so  cold  that  the  snow 
remains  there  always.  The  height  at  which  this  takes 
place  varies  with  the  part  of  the  earth  we  are  in, 
and  with  other  things  ;  as,  for  instance,  whether  the 
mountain  faces  south  or  north,  whether  it  is  steep  or 
not,  whether  it  is  exposed  to  cold  winds  or  warm 
winds.  In  the  Andes,  between  the  tropics,  the 
snow-line  varies  from  15,000  to  20,000  feet  above 
the  sea,  according  to  circumstances.  On  the  Hima- 
layas it  is  15,500  feet  on  the  south  side  and  16,600 
on  the  north  side ;  on  Mont  Blanc  it  is  8,500  feet. 
Warm  winds  contain  a  great  deal  of  moisture,  and 
when  such  a  wind  blows  on  to  a  cold  mountain  it  drops 
its  moisture ;  in  other  words  rain  falls.  And  this  is  the 
reason  why  there  is  so  much  rain  in  mountainous 
districts.  The  heaviest  annual  rainfall  in  the  world 
is  in  the  Khasia  hills,  behind  the   Bay  of  Bengal, 


GEOGRAPHY. 


where  the  hot  damp  winds  from  the  Indian  Ocean 
meet  a  cooler  atmosphere,  and  drop  not  less  than 
50  feet  deep  of  water  in  the  twelve  months.  In  the 
Cumberland  mountains  the  rainfall  is  from  15  to 
18  feet  annually,  while  away  from  the  mountains  on 
the  same  coast  it  is  only  from  2  feet  6  inches  to  4  feet. 
Sometimes  mountains  intercept  the  whole  of  the  rain, 
as  the  Andes  do.  An  immense  quantity  falls  on  their 
eastern  or  Atlantic  side,  while  on  the  coast  between 
the  Andes  and  the  Pacific  it  is  very  seldom  seen.  In 
the  district  between  the  Rocky  mountains  and  the 
Cascade  mountains,  the  former  intercept  the  rain 
from  the  Atlantic,  and  the  latter  that  from  the  Pacific, 
and  the  land  receives  none. 

141.  By  thus  intercepting  the  moisture  of  the  air 
mountains  cause  great  differences  in  the  climate  of 
places  on  opposite  sides  of  them.  Thus  with  the 
Dovrefeld,  the  great  mountain  range  of  Norway,  on 
the  west  or  seaward  side  the  difference  between  the 
temperatures  of  summer  and  winter  is  only  180,  while 
on  the  other  side  of  the  range,  by  the  Gulf  of  Bothnia, 
the  difference  is  42  °  ;  the  summer  being  much  hotter, 
the  winter  much  colder. 

142.  If  the  mountains  are  not  covered  with  perpetual 
snow,  the  rain  that  falls  and  does  not  sink  into  the 
ground  runs  off  in  torrents  and  streams  and  water- 
falls. If  they  are  colder  it  falls  as  snow,  and  then 
forms  glaciers,  which  may  be  described  as  rivers 
of  ice,  filling  the  upper  valleys  many  hundred  feet 
deep,  and  slowly  forcing  their  way  down  into  the 
lower  parts.  As  they  get  lower,  into  the  warmer 
air,  the  glaciers  melt,  and  from  the  lower  end — ■ 
sometimes  called  the  "  toe  " — a  river  will  flow  away, 
as  the  Arve  does  from  the  lower  end  of  the  Mer  de 


MOUNTAINS.     GLACIERS. 


Glace,  or  the  Rhone  from  the  glacier  below  the 
Furca.  Thus  glaciers  so  far  perform  the  same  office 
as  lakes  (§  192)  ;  they  receive  the  sudden  masses 
of  snow,  store  them  up,  and  release  them  gradually 
in  the  form  of  streams,  always  flowing  to  refresh  and 
fertilise  the  valleys  below,  and  to  delight  the  eye  by 
the  continual  contrast  of  the  verdure  beneath  with  the 
rocks  and  snow  above. 

143.  We  in  Europe  can  form  little  idea  of  what  a 
frightful  calamity  the  want  of  mountains  and  streams 
is.  Australia  will  probably  suffer  from  it  to  the  end 
of  time.  Had  that  great  continent  been  divided  by  a 
range  of  mountains,  sufficiently  lofty  to  have  had  per- 
petual snow,  and  thus  to  intercept  the  hot  winds  and 
rob  them  of  their  moisture,  it  would  have  been  one. 
of  the  richest  countries  in  the  world ;  and  its  interior, 
instead  of  being,  as  much  of  it  is,  a  wilderness  of 
countless  sand  ridges,  itself  devoured  by  scorching 
winds,  and  the  source  of  drought  and  oppression  to 
the  settlements  on  the  coast,  would  have  been  one 
giant  field  of  corn  and  pasture. 

144.  But  from  whatever  source  it  started,  the  river 
carries  away  sand  and  stones,  which  the  rain  or  the 
glacier  have  soaked  or  scraped  off  the  mountain  ;  and 
thus  the  circle  of  nature  goes  on.  The  mountain  causes 
the  clouds  to  drop  their  rain  :  the  rain  wears  away  the 
mountain  and  hurries  down  its  sides,  gradually  raising 
the  lowlands  with  what  it  brings  down,  and  carrying 
the  remainder  into  the  ocean,  from  whence,  while  the 
sand  goes  into  the  depths  to  form  new  rocks,  the 
water  rises  again  in  vapour,  to  repeat,  over  and  over 
again,  the  same  process  of  destruction  and  supply. 

145.  Mountains  have  played  a  great  part  in  the 
history  of  many  countries  by  affording  a  refuge  for  the 


po  GEOGRAPHY. 


people  when  the  lowlands  were  conquered,  and  pre- 
serving for  long  the  names,  manners,  and  customs  of  the 
first  inhabitants  of  the  country.  The  Peak  of  Derbyshire, 
and  the  Cumberland  mountains,  contain  more  names 
in  the  Celtic  or  old  British  dialect  than  the  lowland 
districts  round  them  do  ;  Wales  and  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland  are  still  inhabited  by  the  old  British  peoples 
whom  the  English  could  not  drive  out  as  they  did 
those  of  the  flatter  parts  of  Britain.  In  Switzerland, 
the  Caucasus,  and  Southern  India,  the  mountains  are 
still  the  abode  of  the  primeval  races — and  the  same 
elsewhere.  There,  far  away  from  cities  and  com- 
munication with  the  rest  of  the  world,  they  preserve 
the  simple  virtues  of  primeval  life,  though  they  also 
preserve  its  ignorance  and  prejudice.  In  Kaferistan, 
a  very  inaccessible  mountain-region  of  Central  Asia,  on 
the  southern  slopes  of  the  Hindoo  Koosh,  all  attempts 
at  intercourse  with  the  ancient  people  have  been  un- 
successful, so  that,  though  a  large  and  prosperous 
nation,  their  numbers,  language,  and  creed  remain  to 
this  day  unknown. 

146.  This  has  occasionally  been  reversed,  as  in  the 
conquest  of  Palestine,  where  the  Jews  took  possession 
of  the  heights,  and  left  the  plains  to  the  Canaanites ; 
and  in  some  parts  of  Italy  to  the  present  day  the  villages 
adhere  to  the  mountain  side,  and  for  the  same  reason, 
namely,  that  the  plains  were  the  resort  of  robbers  and 
plunderers,  from  whom  safety  was  only  to  be  found 
in  the  hills.  Both  cases  shew  the  influence  which 
mountains  have  had  on  the  life  of  the  nations  who 
dwell  among  them. 

147.  Nor  should  we  forget  the  protection  which  a 
chain  of  mountains  affords  to  those  who  dwell  behind 
them.  But  for  the  Alps,  Italy  would  no  doubt  have  been 


MOUNTAINS  AND    THEIR  NAMES.  91 


overrun  by  the  northern  barbarians  centuries  sooner 
than  it  was  ;  Napoleon  could  not  have  invaded  it  but 
for  the  road  across  the  Great  St.  Bernard,  and  the 
fact  of  his  making  the  Simplon  road  afterwards,  at  an 
immense  cost,  proves  how  great  an  obstacle  he  felt  the 
mountains  to  be  to  his  movements.  Thus  mountains, 
and  not  rivers,  are  the  usual  boundaries  of  different 
countries.  The  Cheviots  form  more  than  two-thirds 
of  the  barrier  between  England  and  Scotland.  The 
Franco-German  war  of  1870  showed  that  the  Vosges 
mountains,  and  not  the  Rhine,  were  the  real  division 
between  France*and  Germany.  The  Pyrenees  and  Alps 
are  obvious  instances  of  the  same  thing. 

148.  In  many  cases  mountains  take  their  names 
from  the  snow  on  their  tops.  Himalaya  is  the  "abode 
of  snow;"  Dwajalagiri  is  "the  white  mountain;" 
Lebanon  the  same ;  Apennines  means  "  the  white 
head ; "  Caucasus  is  "  white  with  snow."  Mont  Blanc, 
the  Sierra  Nevada,  the  Weisshorn,  the  Snafell  in 
Iceland,  the  Sneehattan  in  Norway,  are  all  names 
derived  from  the  snow.  But  this  is  not  always 
the  case,  even  where  we  should  most  expect  it. 
Andes  means  "  copper  ; "  Fusi-yama,  the  snow-capt 
mountain  of  Japan,  is  "  the  mountain  of  the  rich 
men ;"  Pyrenees  is  "  high  ;"  Aghir-dagh  (Ararat)  is  the 
"huge  mountain."  Ural  is  a  "belt  or  girdle;"  Alp 
is  probably  a  height;  Hecla,  "a  cloak,"  is  so  called 
from  the  smoke  which  hangs  over  it ;  Table  mountain 
from  its  flat  shape  ;  Etna  means  a  furnace  in 
Phoenician,  but  it  is  now  usually  called  Mon-gibello — 
r  mountain-mountain,"  or  "  the  mountain  " — by  the 
peasants  of  Sicily. 

149.  Other  mountains  are  called  after  their  dis- 
coverers   or    explorers,   or    other    eminent    persons, 


GEOGRAPHY. 


as  the  Owen  Stanley  range  in  New  Guinea;  Mount 
pA-erest,  and  Webb's  Peaks  in  the  Himalayas ;  Mount 
Murchison,  and  Fremont  Peak,  in  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains. The  great  volcanoes  in  South  Victoria  Land 
are  called  Erebus  and  Terror,  after  the  two  ships  of 
Captain  James  Ross  who  discovered  them.  Some 
great  mountains  seem  destined  to  be  known  for  ever 
by  a  mere  surveyor's  number.  The  second  loftiest 
peak  in  the  Himalayas  appears  in  the  map  as  "  K  2." 

150.  In  speaking  of  a  mountain  it  is  curious  to 
notice  how  it  is  treated  as  a  person.  Mont  Blanc 
has  been  called  the  "  monarch  of  mountains  j "  the 
Jungfrau  means  the  "  virgin  f  in  Cumberland  we  have 
k!  the  Old  Man,"  which  answers  exactly  to  Jebel-esh- 
Sheikh,  the  modern  name  for  Mount  Hermon.  And 
not  only  so,  but  the  names  for  the  different  parts  of  a 
mountain  are  mostly  taken  from  the  human  body,  such 
as  the  head,  crown,  shoulder,  breast,  gorge  (i.e.  throat), 
side,  back,  flanks,  foot,  instep,  and  heel,  and  in  French 
col  (neck),  for  a  pass.  We  even  speak  of  the  "  saddle" 
and  the  "spurs,"  and  when  a  line  of  mountains  runs 
from  end  to  end  of  an  island,  as  the  Blue  mountains  in 
Jamaica,  they  are  appropriately  named  its  "  backbone." 

151.  I  have  mentioned  volcanoes  or  burning' 
mountains.  There  is  great  difference  of  opinion  as 
to  their  number.  Some  say  that  there  are  400  in  all, 
others  that  there  are  no  less  than  900  in  the  islands  of 
the  West  Pacific  alone.  Many  of  them  seem  to  have 
altogether  ceased  to  burn,  but  others  are  in  constant 
eruption.  A  volcano  is  a  hole  going  down  below  the 
surface  and  through  the  crust  of  the  earth,  up  which 
melted  lava  or  red-hot  cinders  and  dust  are  blown 
from  underneath.  The  quantity  thus  thrown  out  is 
sometimes  almost  beyond  belief.      At  Tomboro,  a 


BURNING  MOUNTAINS.  93 

burning  mountain  in  Sumbawa,  in  1815,  cinders  and 
dust  enough  were  thrown  out  to  form  three  moun- 
tains equal  to  Mont  Blanc,  or  to  cover  the  whole 
of  England  and  Scotland  to  a  depth  of  7  feet.  In 
1783,  lava  was  forced  out  of  a  volcano  in  Iceland, 
equal  to  21  cubic  miles.  In  1835  there  was  an  erup- 
tion in  Mexico,  the  ashes  of  which  covered  the  ground 
for  more  than  20  miles  round  the  mountain  to  a  depth 
of  10  feet,  and  were  carried  as  far  as  Jamaica,  fully 
1,000  miles  off. 

152.  You  can  understand  that  as  the  stones  and  dust 
and  ashes  are  blown  out  of  the  hole  they  will  form  a 
heap  round  about  it.  This  heap  is  called  the  cone,  and 
the  hole  itself  goes  down  like  a  funnel  through  the 
cone  and  is  called  the  crater.  Besides  the  main  crater 
others  break  out  and  vomit  forth  stones  and  dust  and 
cinders  and  lava  j  and  lava  will  burst  out  of  the  side 
of  the  mountain  and  flow  like  a  small  river  of  melting 
iron,  though  the  surface  soon  cools  and  gets  thick, 
and  then  runs  very  slowly  and  forms  huge  ugly  lumps. 
A  field  of  lava  after  the  lava  is  cold  is  one  of  the 
most  hideous  sights  in  the  world.  Thus  by  degrees  a 
mountain  is  formed  round  the  crater.  Etna  is  nearly 
11,000  feet  high,  and  87  miles  round  the  base,  and 
was  probably  all  formed  in  the  way  described.  Some- 
times, as  at  Ternate  and  Tidore,  in  the  Moluccas, 
which  are  regular  symmetrical  cones  of  from  5  to 
6,000  feet  high,  the  volcano  appears  to  have  risen  to 
its  present  height  by  the  outpouring  of  the  single 
crater. 

153.  These  particulars  rather  belong  to  geology  than 
geography,  and  you  will  find  full  information  upon 
them  in  the  Primer  of  Physical  Geography  (p.  103); 
but  there  are  some  things  about  volcanoes  which  must 


94  GEOGRAPHY. 


be  noticed  here.  One  is  that  they  are  seldom  or  never 
far  away  from  water.  Etna,  Vesuvius,  and  Hecla  are 
all  close  to  the  coast.  The  volcanoes  of  the  Andes 
line  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Pacific  for  several 
thousand  miles ;  and  from  North  America  through  the 
Aleutian  and  Kurile  islands,  Japan,  the  Philippines 
and  Java,  to  New  Zealand,  volcanoes  may  be  said 
almost  to  enclose  that  ocean. 

154.  Another  point  is  that  they  often  occur  in 
straight  lines,  as  if  over  a  crack  or  weak  place  in  the 
earth's  cruet.  In  the  Aleutian  islands  there  are  23, 
covering  900  miles  in  length.  In  Kamschatka  and  the 
Kurile  islands  they  extend  540  miles  in  a  line,  in  the 
Ladrones  420,  and  in  the  Sundas  for  nearly  1,000. 
But  as  each  volcanic  mountain  is,  from  the  way  in 
which  it  is  formed,  independent — each  collected  around 
its  own  crater  or  craters,  and  formed  by  the  heaping 
together  of  the  materials  thrown  out  of  the  crater — ■ 
volcanoes  are,  as  a  rule,  different  in  shape  from 
mountains  of  upheaval. 

155.  Old  lava  broken  up  and  worn  down  by  the 
action  of  the  weather  forms  a  peculiarly  rich  soil.  On 
the  slopes  of  Vesuvius  grow  the  grapes  from  which  the 
famous  wine  called  Lacrima  Christi  is  made.  Madeira 
is  a  mass  of  disintegrated  volcanic  rock,  and  the 
plain  of  Gennesareth,  at  the  N.W.  corner  of  the  Lake 
of  Galilee,  one  of  the  richest  little  spots  in  the  world, 
derives  its  fertile  soil  from  the  wearing  down  of  the 
basalt  of  an  old  volcano  just  above  it. 

156.  Valleys  are  the  natural  opposites  to  mountains. 
A  valley  is  the  trench  or  hollow  through  which  a  river 
flows — as  the  valley  of  the  Thames,  the  valley  of  the 
Nile,  the  valley  of  the  Rhone,  the  vale  of  Clwydd ; 
meaning  the  whole  extent  between  the  heights  on  the 


VALLEYS.    PLAINS.  95 

one  side  of  the  river  and  the  heights  on  the  other. 
Thus  it  expresses  something  like  what  is  meant  by 
the  more  exact  word  basin  (§  200),  though  the  basin 
takes  in  all  the  sources  and  feeders  of  the  river,  up 
to  the  very  farthest  and  smallest,  whereas  the  valley 
relates  to  the  stream  alone.  The  valley  must  have 
begun  in  some  accidental  hollow  in  the  ground,  which 
attracted  the  water  to  flow  along  it,  and  which  has 
been  gradually  deepened  and  widened  by  the  flow. 
Though  originally  formed  in  this  way  it  is  not 
necessary  that  the  river  should  still  be  there  ;  many 
causes  may  have  altered  its  course  or  lessened  its 
flow.  Sometimes  the  bed  of  the  valley  will  be  occu- 
pied by  a  series  of  lakes. 

157.  A  plain  is  a  district  of  more  or  less  even 
ground,  not  broken  up  by  mountains  or  hills.  It  may 
have  undulations  of  its  own,  and  may  rise  by  degrees 
to  a  considerable  height,  but  it  will  do  so  by  long, 
easy  slopes.  Thus  Salisbury  Plain  is  a  succession  of 
hollows  and  rises,  over  which  the  road  goes  gently  up 
and  down.  Some  plains  are  alluvial — that  is,  have 
been  deposited  by  water — and  these  are  almost  abso- 
lutely level.  Such  are  parts  of  the  counties  of  Cam- 
bridge, Norfolk,  and  Lincoln ;  and  such  are  the 
plain  of  Crau,  between  Aries  and  Marseilles — which 
is  the  older  part  of  the  Delta  of  the  Rhone  j  or  the 
whole  of  Lower  Egypt,  which  is  the  Delta  of  the 
Nile;  or,  on  a  larger  scale,  the  Steppes  of  South 
Russia,  and  the  plains  of  Western  or  Lower  Turkestan, 
at  one  time  the  bed  of  an  ocean  of  which  the  Caspian 
and  Aral  Seas  are  traces. 

158.  When  a  plain  is  some  height  above  the  sea- 
level,  it  is  called  a  plateau  or  table-land. 

159.  The  greatest  plain  in  the  world  is  that  which 


96  GEOGRAPHY. 

has  been  already  (§72)  described  as  spreading  over 
the  northern  part  of  Europe  and  Asia,  from  Cam- 
bridgeshire to  the  eastern  end  of  Siberia.  On  the 
European  side  its  mean  height  above  the  sea-level 
is  about  500  feet,  on  the  Asiatic  side  rather  more. 
Each  portion  is  distinguished  for  its  rivers ;  those 
in  Europe  drain  partly  into  the  Baltic  and  partly 
into  the  Black  Sea,  and  the  mighty  Volga  itself  dis- 
charges i-7th  of  all  the  water  of  Europe  into  the 
Caspian.  The  rivers  of  the  Siberian  plain  are  far 
larger  even  than  the  Volga,  and  they  all  discharge 
into  the  Arctic  Ocean  ;  the  table-land  of  Central  Asia 
preventing  all  drainage  to  the  southward.  The 
Steppes  of  Europe  are  the  country  about  the  lower 
part  of  the  Dnieper,  the  Don,  and  the  Volga,  a  level 
district  about  200  feet  above  the  sea.  East  of  the 
Volga  the  land  falls  below  the  sea-level,  and  these 
are  the  lower  steppes. 

160.  The  Altai  mountains,  and  their  continuation 
eastward,  which  shut  in  Siberia  on  the  south,  are 
the  beginning  of  the  mass  of  high  land  which  ends 
in  the  range  of  the  Himalayas.  The  country  rises 
southwards  by  successive  terraces  :  first  the  plateau 
of  Mongolia  and  the  sandy  desert  of  Gobi,  forming 
together  a  district  of  from  1,200  to  1,800  miles 
from  west  to  east,  and  600  broad  from  north  to 
south,  and  from  2,500  to  3,000  feet  in  general 
height.  Then  come  the  Kuen-lun  mountains,  forming 
the  buttresses  to  another  step  upwards,  to  the  very 
lofty  plateau  of  Tibet,  700  miles  long  by  350  wide, 
and  15  to  17,000  feet  high.  This  is  absolutely  shut 
out  from  all  communication  with  the  ocean,  and  its 
rivers,  though  large,  all  flow  into  lakes,  with  no  outlet 
but   that   of  evaporation.      South  of  Tibet   are  the 


PLATEAUS  AND  PLAINS.  97 

Gangri  mountains,  dividing  it  from  the  valley  of  the 
upper  Brahmapootra,  over  which  towers  the  double 
range  of  the  Himalayas,  with  a  general  height  of 
18,000  feet,  and  peaks  which  reach  29,000. 

161.  The  Lowland  plains  of  S.  America  lie  between 
the  Andes  and  the  Atlantic,  and  form  7-8ths  of  the 
whole  of  the  South  continent.  They  are  known  by  the 
names  of  the  Llanos,  or  Savannahs,  in  the  north,  and 
the  Pampas  in  the  south.  The  Selvas  are  a  forest 
district  in  the  basin  of  the  Amazons.  These  plains 
are  flooded  every  year  by  the  great  rivers  which  flow 
through  them. 

162.  The  interior  of  North  America,  between  the 
Rocky  mountains  on  the  west  and  the  Alleghanies  on 
the  east,  is  an  immense  plain,  sloping  up  very  gradually 
from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  a  summit  of  about  1,500 
feet  in  height.  The  northern  slopes  of  this  summit 
drain  into  the  Saskatchewan  and  Red  rivers,  the 
southern  into  the  Missouri  and  Mississippi ;  and 
north-east  of  it  is  the  great  chain  of  fresh-water  lakes 
which  discharge  through  the  St.  Lawrence  into  tha 
Atlantic.  The  northern  and  eastern  portions  of 
the  great  plain,  some  1,400  by  1,000  miles,  are  the 
prairies,  undulating  regions  covered  with  coarse 
grass. 

163.  The  Sahara,  or  burning  desert  of  North  Africa, 
is  3,000  miles  long  from  the  Atlantic  to  Egypt,  and 
over  1,000  in  width,  equal  in  area  to  the  whole  of 
Australia,  and  varying  in  height  from  below  the  sea  to 
1,500  feet  above  it.  The  extreme  east  end  of  the 
Sahara  is  the  land  of  Egypt,  where  the  sand  is  ferti- 
lised by  the  annual  inundation  of  the  Nile. 

164.  The  Dasht-i-kavir  of  Northern  Persia  is  a 
desert  of  salt  swamps  which  appears  to  cover  a  space 

D 


98  GEOGRAPHY. 

of  6  degrees  of  longitude  by  2  of  latitude  ;  but  it  is 
so  little  known  that  I  am  only  able  to  mention  it. 

165.  Peninsula,  a  country  or  piece  of  land  not 
quite  an  island — not  quite  surrounded  by  the  sea; 
such  as  the  Morea  or  the  Crimea,  each  of  which  is  a 
perfect  example.  If  South  America  were  smaller,  it 
too  would  be  a  perfect  peninsula,  hanging  on  as  it 
does  from  North  America  by  the  little  shred  of 
Panama  (fig.  15);  and  so  would  Africa,  which  is 
connected  to  Asia  only  by  the  narrow  neck  of  Suez. 
Indeed,  since  the  Suez  Canal  was  made,  Africa  is 
practically  an  island.  But  these  great  lands  are  con- 
tinents, and  it  would  be  disrespectful  to  apply  the 
term  peninsula  to  either  of  them. 

166.  Where  there  is  a  peninsula  there  ought  to  be 
an  isthmus,  which  is  the  neck  of  land  connecting  it 
with  the  mainland;  and  the  best  examples  of  this 
are  the  Isthmus  of  Darien  or  Panama ;  that  at  Perekop 
at  the  head  of  the  Crimea ;  and  the  Isthmus  of 
Corinth,  which  connects  the  Morea  with  Greece. 
This  last  was  "the  Isthmus"  with  the  Greeks,  and 
gave  its  name  to  the  Isthmian  games,  which  were 
played  there. 

167.  The  peninsula  with  which  we  are  all  most 
familiar  is  that  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  where  the  Penin- 
sular war  was  fought.  In  fact,  in  the  mouths  of  many 
people,  "  the  Peninsula  "  means  these  two  countries. 
We  also  hear  the  expression  the  Peninsula  of  India; 
but  the  word  is  incorrect  in  both  cases,  since  the 
part  where  Spain  joins  France  is  more  than  200  miles 
wide,  and  the  broadest  part  of  India  is  where  it  joins 
the  continent — that  is,  where  the  neck  of  the  isthmus 
ought  to  be. 

168.  With  the  Greeks  a  chersonesus  was  the  same 


PENINSULA.     RIVERS.  99 

thing  as  a  peninsula  with  us.  They  called  the  Morea 
the  Peloponnesus  (the  island  of  Pelops),  the  Crimea 
the  Tauric  Chersonese,  and  the  peninsula  of  Malacca 
the  Golden  Chersonese. 

169.  A  river  is  the  largest  kind  of  stream,  always 
flowing,  never  dry.  Small  streams  are  rivulets  or 
brooks.  A  torrent  is  a  stream  which  flows  only 
in  the  winter  or  rainy  season,  and  in  summer  is  dry 
or  much  reduced,  leaving  a  wide  empty  bed  of 
stones  and  sand,  with  a  small  stream  in  the  middle. 
In  Italy  this  is  called  fiumara,  in  India  nullah,  in 
Syria  wady.  In  Spain,  wady,  an  Arabic  word,  has 
become  corrupted  into  guad,  as  in  Guad-alquivir, 
Guad-arama,  &c.  In  North  America  and  Australia 
the  word  creek  is  used  for  a  river  of  secondary  size, 
whether  permanent,  or  dry  in  summer.  But  a  creek 
(that  is,  crack)  is  correctly  an  opening  in  the  shore 
narrower  than  a  gulf.     (§204.) 

170.  When  you  stand  by  a  great,  strong  rush- 
ing river,  like  the  Rhine  at  Basle  or  the  Thames  at 
Battersea  Bridge,  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  all  that 
mass  of  water  is  made  up  of  separate  rills  and  drops, 
gathered  one  by  one  from  the  land  the  river  passes 
through.  And  it  is  harder  still  not  to  imagine  that  if 
you  wait  long  enough  it  must  pass  away  before  your 
eyes,  and  leave  the  bed  dry.  It  seems  impossible 
that  so  much  water  can  go  flowing  on  for  long.  But  in 
both  cases  you  are  wrong.  The  Rhine  and  the  Thames 
will  live  longer  than  you  will,  and  they  are  made  of 
contributions  from  innumerable  sources. 

171.  Rivers  are  the  drains  of  a  country.  The 
water  falls  from  the  sky  in  rain  or  snow,  and  will 
naturally  drain  off  by  the  lowest  levels  till  it  reaches 
the  lowest  of  all,  the  sea.    As  it  goes  along,  one  drain 


GEOGRAPHY. 


joins  another,  until  at  last  they  all  get  united  into  one 
large  main  drain,  and  this  we  call  the  river.  This  is 
easy  to  understand  where  the  country  consists  of 
mountains  and  slopes,  but  the  same  thing  happens 
where  it  is  so  flat  that,  to  the  eye,  there  appears  no 
slope  at  all ;  the  water  will  always  find  out  the  lowest 
level,  and  along  that  it  will  travel,  unless  it  be  a  hole, 
and  then  it  stays  there  and  forms  a  lake. 

1 7  2.  A  river  may  have  its  source — that  is,  its  longest 
branch  may  begin — in  a  spring,  like  the  Jordan  ; 
or  a  lake  like  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  Amazons,  and 
probably  the  Nile ;  or  a  glacier  like  the  Rhone ; 
but  it  is  not  the  source  which  makes  a  river  large, 
it  is  the  number  of  other  rivers  and  streams  which 
flow  into  it,  and  bring  down  the  water  of  the 
various  basins  which  they  themselves  have  drained. 
A  river  which  runs  into  another  is  called  an  affluent 
or  tributary,  and  the  place  at  which  they  join  is  the 
confluence.  A  river  does  not  usually  grow  broader 
after  it  is  joined  by  a  tributary,  but  it  runs  faster, 
and  therefore  is  able  to  carry  along  the  extra  load  of 
earth  and  stones  which  the  tributary  brings  into  it.  For 
we  must  remember  that  one  great  office  of  rivers  is  to 
bring  down  the  materials  of  the  highlands  to  the  low- 
lands and  into  the  sea,  and  thus  continually  to  renew 
the  face  of  the  earth.  The  Nile,  for  instance,  every 
summer  spreads  a  layer  of  rich  mud  over  the  fields 
of  Egypt,  which  is  as  good  as  a  coat  of  manure. 

173.  A  river  which  gets  much  of  its  water  from 
mountains  has  a  small  basin,  is  very  rapid  in  its 
flow,  subject  to  frequent  sudden  floods,  deep  in 
winter,  shallow  in  summer,  boats  cannot  make  way 
against  the  stream,  and  little  trade  can  be  carried  on 
upon  it.     Thus  the  Rhone,  which  rises  in  the  heart  of 


THE  RHONE.     THE  MISSISSIPPI. 


the  Alps,  is  504  miles  long,  and  has  six  main  tribu- 
taries, its  basin  is  38,000  square  miles,  it  descends 
through  5,600  feet,  it  is  the  most  rapid  river  in 
Europe,  perhaps  in  the  world  ;  the  stream  is  so  strong 
that  its  navigation  can  only  be  carried  on  by  steam- 
boats, and  even  that  only  below  Lyons.  The  floods 
are  often  terrific,  and  the  number  of  people  and 
buildings  destroyed  by  them  is  immense. 

174.  Now  take  a  river  of  a  different  kind.  The 
Mississippi  has  more  than  a  hundred  affluents,  of  which 
the  Missouri  is  fully  as  big  as  itself,  while  several  of 
the  others  are  mighty  streams.  The  land  drained  by 
the  whole  of  these  rivers,  which  at  last  collect  in  the 
one  channel  of  the  Mississippi,  is  more  than  a  million 
of  square  miles,  and  chiefly  flat  land.  The  Mis- 
souri gets  much  of  its  water  from  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains, but  the  Mississippi  itself  and  its  other  great 
tributaries  drain  a  country  which  slopes  so  gently 
that  at  2,400  miles'  distance  it  is  not  quite  1,500 
feet  above  the  sea.  But  the  current  is  very  strong  and 
muddy,  always  running  down,  full  of  sunken  trees 
and  very  dangerous  to  boats,  and  the  trees  and  timber 
which  it  brings  down  so  fill  it  up  as  in  some  places  to 
stop  the  passage  almost  entirely.  The  windings  of 
the  Mississippi  also  are  so  great  as  to  make  some  parts 
of  it  double  the  length.  The  Volga,  the  largest  river 
of  F.urope,  2,700  miles  long,  drains  a  surface  of  half  a 
million  miles,  for  the  most  part  so  flat  that  the  highest 
land  in  all  that  space  is  but  1,100  feet  above  the 
ocean.  The  Volga,  too,  is  always  running  one  way ; 
its  mouth  is  barred  by  sandbanks;  and  after  all  its 
length  and  its  many  windings  it  ends,  not  in  the  open 
sea  but  in  the  Caspian,  a  lake  without  any  outlet. 

175.  By  the  side  of  these  giants,  the  Thames  is 


GEOGRAPHY. 


but  a  little  river,  only  210  miles  long,  with  a  dozen 
small  affluents  ;  and  its  whole  basin  but  6,160  square 
miles.  But  on  the  other  hand,  partly  by  nature,  and 
partly  by  the  care  of  man,  its  stream  is  full  and  even  from 
end  to  end,  with  no  undue  or  vexatious  meanderings ; 
free  from  rapids,  currents,  or  sandbanks ;  its  water  clear 
and  pure  except  where  we  have  spoilt  it;  navigable 
over  nearly  the  whole  of  its  length ;  always  friendly 
and  serviceable.  The  frosts  which  in  North  America 
and  in  many  of  the  rivers  of  Europe  imprison  the 
traffic  and  hold  it  dormant  during  many  valuable 
months,  are  all  but  unknown  to  the  Thames.  It 
enters  the  ocean  at  a  sheltered  place,  and  above 
all  it  is  a  tidal  river.  This  keeps  its  mouth  free 
from  bars  and  shoals.  The  current  though  full 
is  so  gentle  that  the  tide  from  the  sea  can  over- 
come it  and  force  it  back,  and  thus  twice  a  day 
the  tidal  water  runs  up  beyond  London,  and  twice  a 
day  runs  down  again,  so  that  ships,  barges,  and  lighters 
can  float  up  or  down  without  wind  or  other  help. 
This  natural  and  spontaneous  movement  is  one  of  the 
things  that  have  helped  to  make  London  the  great 
place  for  commerce  that  it  is.  Every  ship  or  boat 
that  goes  from  the  sea  to  Paris,  Lyons,  or  Cologne, 
has,  on  account  of  the  downward  speed  of  the  river, 
to  be  dragged  there  against  the  force  of  a  constant 
strong  current,  instead  of  being  floated  up  or  helped 
by  the  natural  tide,  as  it  is  here.  Think  of  that  when- 
ever you  see  the  Thames  washing  the  quays  of  the 
Embankment,  and  the  barges  floating  up  or  down 
with  no  expense  but  that  of  the  steering  oar. 

176.  The  mouth  of  a  river  is  where  it  ends,  and 
empties  itself  into  the  sea  or  a  lake.  When  the  river 
comes  from  or  through  a  soft  or  sandy  country  it  brings 


THE   THAMES.     DELTAS. 


103 


down  mud  in  the  water.  As  long  as  the  water  is  running 
fast  the  mud  is  carried  along ;  but  when  it  meets  the  sea 
and  comes  to  rest  at  its  mouth,  the  mud  falls  down 
and  forms  a  bed  or  bank  between  the  river  and  the 
sea,  spreading  out  in  the  form  of  a  fan.  This  is  the 
case  where  the  Nile  runs  into  the  Mediterranean. 


Fig.  2t. 


1 77.  The  Greeks  called  the  place  delta  after  the  name 
of  their  letter  a  which  is  so  called ;  and  since  then  all 
river-mouths  of  that  kind  have  been  called  deltas. 
The  point  of  the  triangle,  where  the  river  originally- 
entered  the  sea,  is  called  the  head  of  the  delta.  If 
there  is  a  tide  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  it  will  wash 
the  mud  away  as  fast  as  it  is  thrown  down,  and  prevent 
the  delta  from  forming.  And  therefore  the  principal 
deltas  are  in  seas  which  have  no  tide,  as  at  the  mouths 
of  the  Nile,  the  Po,  and  the  Ebro  in  the  Mediterranean, 


104  GEOGRAPHY. 


of  the  Volga  in  the  Caspian,  and  of  the  Mississippi 
in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  This  last  covers  more  than 
30,000  square  miles — very  nearly  the  area  of  Ireland — 
and  has  its  head  200  miles  up  the  river.  Holland  is  a 
large  delta  of  very  ancient  date  formed  at  the  mouths 
of  the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse ;  and  Holland  and  Lower 
Egypt  are  good  examples  of  the  way  in  which  land  is 
made  out  of  the  sea  by  the  agency  of  a  river. 

178.  It  follows  from  what  we  have  just  said  that  the 
mouths  of  tidal  rivers — which  are  called  estuaries — 
are,  like  the  Thames,  as  a  rule  free  from  bars  or  sand- 
banks. 

179.  Where  the  fall  of  rivers  is  rapid,  and  they  bring 
down  many  stones  or  much  mud  in  their  water,  they 
gradually  drop  stones  and  sand  as  they  go  along,  and 
so  the  bed  is  continually  raising  itself.  You  may  see 
this  in  North  Wales,  where  a  mountain  torrent  will 
often  run  on  a  kind  of  embankment  of  stones  and 
rocks,  several  feet  above  the  fields  it  runs  through. 
But  in  Italy  such  rivers  as  the  Po,  the  Ticino,  and 
the  Dora  Baltea  have  raised  themselves  many  yards 
above  the  country ;  and  in  consequence,  when  their 
waters  are  swelled  by  the  melting  of  the  snow  on  the 
mountains  or  by  much  rain,  and  they  overflow  their 
banks,  they  rush  down  into  the  country  on  each  side, 
and  carry  everything  away.  The  quantity  of  sand 
and  sediment  brought  down  by  some  rivers  is  enor- 
mous. That  of  the  Ganges  is  computed  to  be  six 
thousand  million  cubic  feet  in  the  year,  which,  if  it 
could  be  heaped  up  before  us,  would  form  a  mass 
equal  in  size  to  600  St.  Paul's  Cathedrals  ;  and  this 
has  been  going  on  for  thousands,  perhaps  millions,  of 
years.  Picture  to  yourself  the  way  in  which  the  earth 
must  be  wearing  down  under  such  influences. 


THE  FALL   OF  RLVERS.  105 


180.  The  rivers  of  Great  Britain,  even  in  the  wettest 
seasons,  keep  to  their  own  beds,  but  in  India  so  great 
is  the  rush  of  water  from  the  mountains  in  the  rainy- 
season,  that  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  a  river  to 
make  a  new  bed  for  itself  in  the  soft  soil  of  the  plains, 
and  to  wander  several  miles  away  from  its  old  course, 
to  the  destruction  of  everything  in  its  road.  The 
Indus  is  an  old  offender  in  this  way. 

181.  The  slope  or  fall  is  different  in  different 
rivers,  and  in  different  parts  of  the  same.  A  river  like 
the  Rhine  or  the  Rhone,  which  rises  high  up  in  the 
mountains,  falls  very  quickly  in  the  upper  part  of  its 
course  and  more  gently  afterwards.  As  far  down  as 
Basle  the  Rhine  falls  through  a  height  of  4,000  feet  in 
230  miles,  or  17  feet  per  mile.  Between  Basle  and 
Mayence  (246  miles)  it  falls  555  feet,  or  2^  feet  per 
mile.  The  slope  of  the  Rhone  between  Geneva  and 
Lyons  is  6  feet  9  inches  per  mile,  and  from  Lyons  to 
the  sea  2  feet  8}4  inches  per  mile.  The  Nile,  in  the 
1,000  miles  from  Khartoum  to  Philse,  falls  through  784 
feet,  or  about  9  inches  per  mile.  Here  the  cataracts 
cease,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  distance  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean at  Damietta,  600  miles,  the  fall  is  354  feet,  or 
7  inches  per  mile.  The  Amazons,  during  the  upper 
3,000  miles  of  its  course,  falls  10,000  feet,  or  3^3  feet 
per  mile ;  during  the  last  400  miles  it  suddenly  sub- 
sides, and  slopes  only  40  feet,  or  1 }(  inch  in  a  mile. 
The  Thames,  from  Chertsey  to  Teddington,  slopes 
17^  inches  per  mile,  from  Teddington  to  London 
Bridge  (17^  miles),  9  inches  per  mile,  and  from 
London  Bridge  to  the  Nore  (46  miles),  1  inch  per 
mile. 

182.  The  speed  of  a  river  does  not  usually  depend 
on  its  slope  so  much  as  on  its  depth,  or  the  body  of 

D* 


lo6  GEOGRAPHY. 


water  it  contains,  and  on  the  straightness  of  its  course. 
If  there  are  many  windings  and  the  river  is  shallow, 
the  speed  is  much  reduced  by  the  friction  of  the  water 
against  the  sides  and  bottom.  The  average  speed  of 
the  Nile,  Rhine,  and  Ganges  in  their  lower  portions  is 
said  to  be  from  three  to  four  miles  an  hour;  the 
St.  Lawrence,  below  Niagara,  about  three  miles  an 
hour ;  the  Thames,  from  Battersea  downwards,  at  low 
tide — when  the  river  is  left  to  itself — from  3  to  3^4 
miles  per  hour.  We  can  form  some  idea  of  the  vast 
body  of  water  which  is  poured  out  by  the  Mississippi 
into  the  Mexican  Gulf,  when  we  know  that  notwith- 
standing its  gentle  slope  and  very  crooked  course, 
and  the  many  hindrances  of  timber,  &c,  already  men- 
tioned, the  force  of  the  current  is  enough  to  hurl  the 
water  out  so  violently  that  its  mud  discolours  the  sea 
out  of  sight  of  land. 

183.  A  river  is  rarely  the  boundary  between  two 
nations.  The  large  rivers  we  have  spoken  of  run 
through  their  own  countries.  The  French  wished  to 
make  the  Rhine  the  boundary  between  a  part  of 
France  and  Germany,  but  the  Vosges  mountains  are 
the  actual  barrier.  In  fact  a  river  is  rather  a  ready 
means  of  communication  than  a  barrier. 

184.  You  will  often  see  the  expression  "  right  bank  " 
or  "  left  bank  "  of  a  river.  You  are  supposed  to  be  at 
the  source,  looking  down  the  stream.  Then  the  right 
bank  is  to  your  right  hand,  and  the  left  bank  to  your 
left  hand. 

185.  The  names  of  rivers  are  so  curious  that  it  will 
be  well  worth  our  while  to  bestow  a  few  minutes  upon 
them.  They  are  amongst  the  oldest  names  in  the 
world ;  they  pass  through  the  oddest  changes  as  the 


NAMES  OF  RIVERS. 


language  of  the  country  alters,  but  the  old  word  re- 
mains firm  and  fast  at  the  bottom  of  the  new  form. 

They  are  the  memorials  of  the  very  earliest  races, 
surviving  amidst  the  latest  civilisation.  As  the  old 
British  stones  at  Avebury  linger  among  the  cottages 
of  the  modern  village,  so  does  the  Celtic  word  for 
water  still  sound  in  the  name  of  6Mord.  After  the 
North  American  Indians  are  extinct  their  language 
will  survive  for  ever  in  the  names  of  the  Pdtomac 
and  Susquehanna  rivers. 

The  principal  river  names  in  England  are  four. 
They  are  Celtic  words,  of  the  language  spoken  in  the 
island  before  Romans  or  Englishmen  came  into  it, 
and  still  spoken  in  Wales  and  the  Highlands;  and 
they  mean  simply  "  river  "  or  "  water." 

1 86.  Avon. — There  are  no  less  than  fourteen  rivers 
with  this  name  unchanged  in  Great  Britain,  and  still 
more  have  it  in  a  modified  form,  as  Evan,  Inn,  &c. 
Afon  is  the  Welsh  word  for  river,  and  the  Welsh  speak 
habitually  of  the  "  Afon  so-and-so/'  as  we  do  of  the 
"  River  so-and-so." 

187.  Dwr  (pronounced  like  poor). — There  are  three 
rivers  called  exactly  by  this  name,  and  many  others 
called  Dore,  Duir,  Dover,  Dura-water,  Thur,  Adur, 
and  other  forms.  Joined  with  the  word  gwyn,  clear, 
dur-givyn,  the  clear  water,  it  appears  as  Denvent,  of 
which  name  there  are  four  rivers  in  the  north  of 
England,  besides  the  Darwen  and  Derwen,  and  the 
Lake  of  Derwentwater.  It  is  easier  to  say  Darent 
than  Denvent,  and  so  Darent  it  has  become  in  Kent, 
and  from  Darent,  Dart,  or  shortened  in  another  way, 
Trent.  Trent  used  to  be  supposed  to  mean  thirty, 
from  the  Latin  triginta,  French  trente ;  and  they  said  it 


108  GEOGRAPHY. 

was  because  the  river  had  thirty  *tributaries,  thirty 
monasteries  on  its  banks,  thirty  kinds  of  fish ;  but  it 
is  nothing  of  the  sort.  So  too  Dart  is  often  said  to 
mean  that  the  stream  is  as  swift  as  a  dart ;  but  after 
what  I  have  said  you  will  know  better. 

1 88.  Uisge. — This  means  simply  "water,"  and  is  pre- 
served almost  exactly  in  "  whisky,"  which  was  called 
at  first  the  "water  of  life,"  like  the  French  name 
eau-de-vie  for  brandy.  And  this  is  the  most  curious 
of  all  the  river  names  for  its  changes.  The  nearest 
to  the  old  form  are  perhaps  the  Wisk  in  Yorkshire 
and  the  Usk  in  Monmouthshire ;  then  comes  Esk, 
of  which  there  are  nine,  then  Exe,  Ax,  Ux,  and 
Ox — which  has  nothing  to  do  with  oxen,  as  the 
heralds  supposed  who  gave  Oxford  its  coat-of-arms — 
and  Ose,  at  Oseney,  the  "  island  in  the  water  "  near 
Oxford ;  and  then  Use,  Ouse,  Ousel,  Ouseburn.  Ash, 
and  Wish  or  Wis — in  Wisbeach — and  the  Wash.  The 
Isis  is  the  same  word,  and  the  Tam-esis  or  Thames  is 
only,  the  "broad  water,"  because  in  old  days  it  ex- 
tended from  where  London  stands  to  the  Sydenham 
hills.  On  the  whole  there  are  not  less  than  50  streams 
named  from  Uisge,  besides  a  large  number  of  places 
and  things.  Phoenix  Park,  Dublin,  strange  as  it  seems, 
is  a  mere  English  corruption  of  Fion-uisge,  from  a  clear 
spring  there. 

189.  The  fourth  word  is  Don,  which  besides  its  own 
form  appears  as  Dun,  Dean,  Dane,  Davon,  Devon, 
Tyne,  Teign,  Teyn,  and  so  on. 

These  names  are ,  not  confined  to  England.  And 
we  need  only  remember  the  Dordogne*  the  Adour, 

*  So  Milton  : 

Or  Trent,  who,  like  some  earth-born  giant,  spreads 
His  thirty  arms  along  the  indented  i 


NAMES  OF  RIVERS.     LAKES.  109 


the  Douro;  the  Oxus,  the  Oise,  the  Iser,  Osnaburg 
(which  is  really  Osnabruck) ;  the  Don  and  the  Danube, 
to  see  how  widely  spread  they  are. 

190.  A  river  is  a  drain  for  taking  the  water  of  a 
country  to  the  ocean,  and  a  lake  is  a  natural  tank 
for  storing  it  up.  Suppose  a  hollow  place  between  two 
mountains,  or  two  parts  of  a  mountain.  Streams  flow 
down  the  slopes  into  it,  and  springs  burst  up  in  its 
bed,  and  the  water  collects  in  the  hollow  and  rises 
till  it  finds  a  place  where  it  can  run  away ;  and  that  is 
sometimes  the  source  of  a  great  river.  Such  is  Der- 
went  Water,  or  Loch  Tay,  or  the  lake  of  Zurich,  or 
the  Italian  lakes,  or  the  lake  Sir-i-kol  (now  called 
Victoria)  15,600  feet  high,  and  the  source  of  the  Oxus, 

In  his  high  mountain  cradle  in  Pamere. 

Sometimes  a  river  will  flow  in  at  one  end  and  out  at 
the  other,  as  the  Rhone  runs  through  the  lake  of 
Geneva,  and  the  Rhine  through  the  lake  of  Constance, 
or  the  Jordan  through  the  lake  of  Galilee.  Sometimes 
a  number  of  lakes  will  be  connected  together,  as  those 
of  North  America.     (§79.) 

191.  Lakes  are  mostly  in  mountainous  countries, 
such  as  Scotland,  Cumberland,  Switzerland,  or  Bavaria, 
where  there  are  often  convenient  hollows  for  them  to 
form  in.  Not  so  however  the  North  American  lakes 
which  abound  in  Western  Canada  and  Rupert's  Land, 
and  have  flat  shores,  and  seem  to  come  from  the  extra- 
ordinary wetness  of  the  country  ;  nor  the  Sea  of  Aral ; 
nor  the  great  lakes  of  North  Russia,  Finland,  and 
South  Sweden,  which  are  probably  the  remains  of  the 
water  that  once  covered  the  whole  of  that  low  region, 
as  Whittleseymere,  in  the  Fen  country  in  Huntingdon, 
is  or  was. 


GEOGRAPHY. 


192.  It  is  a  great  advantage  to  a  river  to  run  through 
a  lake,  because  the  lake  regulates  the  flow  of  the  water 
which  goes  away  from  it,  and  keeps  it  steady.  If 
much  rain  falls  in  the  mountains  above,  or  the  weather 
becomes  hot  and  the  snow  melts  quickly,  it  will  come 
down  into  the  upper  part  of  the  river  in  such  sudden 
floods  that  the  channel  is  not  big  enough  to  carry  it 
off,  and  then  it  will  overflow  and  wash  away  houses 
and  fields  and  cattle,  or,  like  the  Indian  rivers  (§180), 
it  will  change  its  bed.  But  if  there  is  a  lake  this  is 
prevented,  because  the  flood  of  water  which  was 
enough  to  fill  the  river  to  overflowing  is  only  sufficient 
to  make  the  lake  rise  a  few  inches  or  a  few  feet,  and 
then  the  water  gets  time  to  flow  away  more  quietly 
down  the  lower  part  of  the  river. 

193.  Lakes  through  which  water  flows  are  fresh. 
But  sometimes  the  hollow  in  which  the  water  collects 
is  lower  than  the  ocean,  or  so  parted  from  it  that  there 
can  be  no  outlet ;  in  this  case,  the  only  escape  for  the 
water  is  by  evaporation.  The  streams  and  the  springs 
pour  in  to  the  lake,  the  sun  heats  the  water  and  turns 
it  into  vapour,  and  the  level  at  which  the  water 
stands  is  the  balance  of  the  two.  This  is  the  case  in 
the  Dead  Sea.  The  water  is  continually  being  dis- 
tilled by  the  sun,  that  is  to  say  the  pure  water  is 
driven  off  in  vapour,  and  the  salts  and  other  in- 
gredients remain  behind  in  the  lake.  It  is  easy  to 
see  that  the  quantity  of  salts  in  the  water  must  be 
continually  increasing,  while  the  quantity  of  water 
remains  the  same;  so  that  the  saltness  must  go  on 
becoming  more  and  more  intense,  till,  as  in  the  Dead 
Sea,  the  water  is  too  bitter  and  hot  to  be  borne  in  the 
mouth,  or,  as  in  lake  Assal,  in  Eastern  Africa,  it  is 
almost  solid  salt. 


LAKES.    INLAND  SEAS. 


194.  The  Caspian  and  Aral  are  the  largest  of  a  great 
number  of  lakes,  which  receive  the  drainage  of  the 
central  district  of  Asia — the  so-called  "  continental 
district "  already  mentioned.  Similar  inland  lakes  are 
those  of  Titicaca  in  Bolivia,  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Andes  j  lake  Chad  in  the  Sahara  j  and  the  Great 
Salt  Lake  in  Utah,  North  America. 

195.  Lakes  in  Scotland  are  called  loch,  and  in 
Ireland  lough — both  pronounced  alike.  A  tarn  is 
a  small  lake,  usually  high  up  in  the  mountains. 

196.  Inland  seas  are  portions  of  the  ocean, 
separated  from  it  by  a  very  narrow  entrance.  Such 
are  the  Red  Sea,  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  Hudson's  Bay ; 
but  the  most  important  are  the  Baltic  and  the  Medi- 
terranean (which  means  "  in  the  midst  of  land  "),  in- 
cluding the  Black  Sea.  These  two  receive  between 
them  more  than  half  the  waters  of  Europe.  They 
have  little  or  no  tide,  as  their  narrow  entrances  keep 
it  out.  They  are,  however,  in  some  respects  very 
different.  The  Baltic  is  shallow,  the  Mediterranean 
deep;  the  Baltic  is  diluted  by  its  many  rivers,  and 
its  water  is  not  so  salt  as  the  ocean ;  while  the 
Mediterranean,  not  receiving  nearly  so  many  rivers  in 
proportion,  and  having  a  hot  climate  to  evaporate 
the  water,  is  salter  than  the  ocean.  The  Mediterranean 
is  agreeable,  the  Baltic  inclement,  both  are  treacherous. 
In  each  there  is  a  constant  current  both  out  and 
in,  but  in  the  Mediterranean  the  outward  current  is 
below,  and  the  inward  one  above ;  while  in  the  Baltic 
it  is  exactly  the  reverse — the  outgoing  current  is 
above,  and  the  incoming  one  below.  These  two  seas 
add  enormously  to  the  coast-line  of  Europe,  and  help 
to  give  it  that  great  length  which  is  one  of  the  causes 
of  its  superiority  to  other  parts  of  the  world, 


GEOGRAPHY. 


197.  Watershed  and  waterparting  are  two 
words  belonging  to  the  supply  of  water  to  rivers. 
A  waterparting  is  the  spot  or  line  at  which  the 
surface-water  of  a  mountain,  hill,  or  swelling  ground 
parts,  and  begins  to  flow  down  the  slope  on  each  side. 
The  ridge  of  a  roof  is  a  waterparting.  It  is  the 
line  between  the  rain  which  runs  down  the  slates  on 


Fig.  22. 

one  side  and  the  slates  on  the  other.    If  the  roof  were 
nearly  flat,  like  the  top  of  a  railway-carriage,  the  water 


Fig.  23. 


would  still  fall  off  on  each  side,  and  there  would  still 
be  a  line  along  the  middle  at  which  the  parting  took 
place.  Some  mountains  have  a  ridge  almost  as  sharp 
as  that  of  the  roof,  others  are  more  irregular.     Some 


WATERPARTING. 


"3 


undulating  ground  is  as  flat  as  the  top  of  the  rail- 
way-carriage ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  say  by  the  eye 
where  the  line  of  waterparting  is  ;  and  some  ground 
is  flat  here,  and  round  a  little  farther  on,  and 
broken  here,  and  steep  there ;  and  then  it  is  more 
difficult  still.  But  water  will  always  find  its  level, 
and  there  is  always  a  line  at  which  the  water  will 
know  of  itself  where  to  go  down  the  one  side  and 
where  to  go  down  the  other  ;  and  that  line,  straight 
or  crooked,  is  the  waterparting.  You  may  trace  it 
on  a  good  map,  even  to  a  small  scale  and  in  very  flat 
countries,  by  noticing  where  the  rivers  start  from. 
Here  is  a  bit  from  the  centre  of  Russia  where  the 
undulations  of  the  ground  are  very  slight : 


Fig.  24. 


The  dotted  line  drawn  midway  between  the  various 
sources  of  the  streams  which  flow  different  ways  can- 
not be  far  from  the  waterparting  of  this  flat  district. 

198.  It  is  interesting,  in  going  through  a  moun- 
tainous country,  to  see  the  parting  of  the  streams. 
There  is  a  good  example  on  the  Highland  Railway 
a  couple  of  miles  north  of  Dalnaspidal,  where  the 


GEOGRAPHY. 


streams  of  the  Garry  and  the  Truim — one  of  the 
tributaries  of  the  Spey — may  be  seen  to  part  and  fall 
off,  one  down  the  one  slope  of  the  hill,  the  other 
down  the  other,  as  the  train  passes  the  waterparting. 
Sometimes  the  line  will  be  very  crooked,  and  the 
heads  of  the  streams  on  each  side  will  run  back  far 
past  each  other,  and  "  overlap,"  as  it  is  called.  In 
the  highlands  of  Central  Palestine  the  streams  flow 
down  to  the  Mediterranean  on  one  side,  and  the 
Jordan  valley  on  the  other ;  and  there  the  heads  of 
an  eastern  torrent  will  sometimes  be  4  miles  farther 
west  than  that  of  the  western  torrent  next  to  it. 
In  the  central  part  of  North  America,  at  the  water- 
parting  of  the  Mississippi  on  the  south  and  the 
Saskatchewan  on  the  north,  the  sources  of  the  rivers 
are  sometimes  so  close,  and  the  land  between  them 
so  level,  that  boats  can  be  carried  over  from  one  to 
the  other;  and  in  the  rainy  season,  when  the  whole 
district  is  inundated,  boats  can  even  be  rowed  across. 
199.  The  waterparting  being  the  ridge  or  highest 
line  between  two  streams,  the  watershed  is  the 
whole  of  the  ground  between  the  waterparting  and  the 


Fig.  25. 


stream.    In  fact,  it  is  the  slope  of  the  roof,    The  ridge 


WA  TERSHED.     BASIN.  r  1 5 


(fig.  25)  is  the  waterparting ;  the  slates  on  each 
Bide  are  the  watershed  ;  and  the  gutter  (or  furrow, 
or  valley,  for  the  builders  call  it  by  all  three  names) 
is  the  river.  "  Ridge  and  furrow "  is  the  common 
builders'  term  for  such  a  roof.  The  terms  are  actually 
borrowed  from  the  land.  Of  course  so  simple  a  case 
as  this  will  seldom  or  never  occur  in  nature  ;  the 
broad  slope  of  the  watershed  will  in  the  course  of 
ages  have  become  indented  with  smaller  streams,  each 
of  which  will  have  its  own  waterparting  and  watershed; 
but  on  the  whole  they  will  all  slope  down  towards  the 
main  stream — the  gutter — at  the  bottom;  and  carrying 
the  principle  in  your  head,  you  will  have  no  difficulty 
in  tracing  the  whole  structure. 

200.  The  basin  is  the  whole  area  or  space  of  ground 
which  supplies  the  water  to  a  river,  lake,  or  ocean. 
In  the  first  case  it  comprises  not  only  the  valley  of 
the  main  river  itself,  but  those  of  all  the  rivers  and 
streams  which  run  into  it,  with  all  their  tributaries,  up 
to  the  waterparting  of  each.  The  basin  of  the  Thames 
includes  the  valleys  of  the  Kennet,  Wey,  Mole, 
Darent,  Medway,  Cherwell,  Thame,  Colne,  Lea,  and 
other  smaller  streams,  besides  its  own,  and  these 
cover  in  all  6,160  square  miles.  The  basin  of  the 
Volga,  the  largest  river  of  Europe,  covers  520,000 
square  miles ;  that  of  the  Rhone  38,000.  The  flatter 
the  country  the  larger  the  basin. 

201.  The  basin  of  a  lake  or  ocean  includes  the 
basins  of  all  the  rivers  which  supply  it,  with  all 
their  tributaries.  Take  the  Dead  Sea  as  an  example 
of  a  lake.  Its  basin  includes  on  the  north  all  the 
land  drained  by  the  Jordan,  with  all  its  streams  and 
torrents  east  and  west;  the  streams  and  torrents 
which  fall   direct  into  the   lake  itself,   frorp  Judaea 


n6  GEOGRAPHY. 


on  the  one  side  and  Moab  on  the  other ;  and  on  the 
south  the  great  Wady  el-Jeib,  which  drains  the  whole 
northern  portion  of  the  Arabah,  including  the  western 
flanks  of  Mount  Seir.  Thus  the  basin  of  this  not 
very  extensive  lake  stretches  from  -about  40  miles  above 
Akabah  on  the  south  to  beyond  Rasheiyah  and  Mount 
Hermon  on  the  north  (240  miles),  and  from  Nablus 
on  the  west  to  Sulkhad  on  the  east  (90  miles). 

202.  The  basin  of  the  Mediterranean  includes  the 
basins  of  all  the  rivers  which  drain  into  it  in  Europe, 
Asia,  and  Africa ;  while  the  basin  of  the  Atlantic  com- 
prises the  larger  part  of  the  continents  of  North  and 
South  America,  the  whole  of  Europe  except  that  which 
drains  into  the  Caspian,  and  a  great  portion  of  Africa. 
The  basin  of  the  Atlantic  is  calculated  to  cover  on 
the  whole  the  enormous  area  of  19  million  square 
miles.     (§95.) 

203.  Coast — that  is,  a  rib  or  side — the  edge  of 
the  land  near  the  sea.  We  say  a  sandy  coast,  a  rocky 
coast,  an  iron-bound  coast.  Coasting  vessels  are 
vessels  which  keep  near  the  land,  and  a  coasting  trade 
is  the  traffic  carried  on  in  such  vessels  between  two 
ports  of  the  same  country,  as  the  coal  trade  between 
Newcastle  and  London.  The  two  sides  of  India  bear 
this  name ;  on  the  Bombay  side  the  Malabar  coast,  and 
on  the  Madras  side  the  Coromandel  coast.  Costa  Rica 
is  the  "  rich  coast."  The  word  was  formerly  used  for 
an  inland  boundary  between  two  countries  or  districts. 
In  this  sense  it  is  often  employed  in  the  topographical 
portions  of  the  Bible  (Josh.  xiii.  16,  25  ;  xv.  1,  &c). 

204.  Gulf  and  bay. — Each  a  recess  in  the  coast ; 
gulf  usually  perhaps  the  narrower  and  deeper,  and  bay 
the  broader  and  more  open,  of  the  two,  as  the  Persian 
Gulf  and  the  Bay  of  Biscay.     But  the  Gulf  of  Lions 


COAST.     GULF.     STRAIT.  117 


(which  has  nothing  to  do  with  Lyons,  though  often 
so  spelt)  and  the  Gulf  of  Genoa  are  wide  and  open, 
while  the  Bay  of  Fundy  and  Chesapeake  Bay  are  long 
and  comparatively  narrow  inlets  ;  and  Hudson's  Bay 
is  an  inland  sea.  The  Gulf  of  Mexico  is  a  vast  lake 
with  two  narrow  openings,  through  which  the  Gulf 
Stream  flows,  like  the  Rhine  through  the  lake  of  Con- 
stance. The  Bay  of  Salamis  is  practically  a  lake.  In 
fact  the  words  are  used  without  any  exactness. 

Firths,  friths,  or  fiords,  are  inlets  or  arms  run- 
ning up  from  the  sea  into  the  land.  In  the  south  of 
Scotland  and  north  of  Ireland  these  are  sometimes 
called  lochs  or  loughs,  as  at  Loch  Long,  Loch 
Fyne;  Lough  Foyle,  Belfast  Lough,  &c. 

A  bight  (from  a  sailor's  word,  meaning  the  belly 
of  a  hanging  rope)  is  a  broad  open  bay ;  as  the  Bights 
of  Biafra  and  Benin,  and  the  Australian  Bight — which 
are  all  of  this  form,  and  each  several  hundred  miles 
long. 

205.  Strait — that  is,  the  old  English  for  "  narrow  " 
— a  sea  passage  between  two  continents  or  islands. 
The  best  known  are  the  Strait  of  Gibraltar,  between 
Europe  and  Africa ;  Behring's  Strait,  between  Eastern 
Asia  and  Russian  America — the  outlet  of  the  Polar 
Sea  into  the  Pacific  ;  Davis's  Strait,  the  entry  from 
the  Atlantic  to  Baffin's  Bay,  and  the  north-west 
passage ;  Torres  Strait,  between  North  Australia  and 
New  Guinea ;  the  Strait  of  Magellan,  between  the 
islands  of  Tierra  del  Fuego  and  the  mainland  of 
South  America,  the  most  intricate  and  difficult  of  all ; 
or,  to  come  nearer  home,  the  Menai  Strait,  between 
Carnarvonshire  and  Anglesey.  The  term  Strait  of 
Dover  has  now  almost  given  way  to  that  of  The 
Channel — la  Mancke,  or  "the  sleeve,"  as  the  French 


18  GEOGRAPHY. 


call  it.  These  examples  shew  that  the  word  is  used 
both  for  wide  and  narrow  passages.  The  Dardanelles 
and  Bosporus,  the  inlets  to  the  Sea  of  Marmora,  each 
excellent  instances  of  a  strait  in  its  strictest  sense, 
are  seldom  called  by  that  name. 

206.  The  word  *sound  is  used  for  the  narrow 
passage  between  Zealand  and  Sweden,  and  some 
other  straits  in  that  neighbourhood  and  the  coast  of 
Norway ;  and  is  frequent  amongst  the  islands  on 
the  west  coast  of  Scotland,  which  the  Norse  sailors 
greatly  frequented  in  early  times,  and  always  for  a  long 
narrow  passage.  It  has  even  travelled  as  far  as  Nan- 
tucket and  Long  island  in  North  America.  It  is  also 
applied  to  Plymouth  harbour,  which  is  rather  to  be 
called  a  bay. 

207.  Another  Norse  word  is  belt,  applied  to 
passages,  broader  than  a  sound,  between  the  main- 
land and  islands  of  Denmark.  Possibly  the  origin 
of  the  name  Baltic  Gut  is  also  sometimes  used. 
"  The  Gut "  is  at  Gibraltar,  and  Canso  Gut  separates 
Nova  Scotia  from  Breton.  It  is  probably  the  same 
word  with  the  last  syllable  of  Kattegat,  the  broad 
strait  between  Denmark  and  Sweden — a  gate  or 
passage.  A  name  of  similar  meaning  is  the  fminch, 
which  is  used  for  the  passage  between  the  Hebrides 
and  Scotland.  Kyles  is  a  Celtic  word,  frequent  on 
the  west  and  north  of  Scotland  for  a  long  narrow 
passage  or  inlet 

208.  A  road  or  roadstead  is  an  anchorage,  a 
part  of  the  sea  sufficiently  shallow  for  ships  to  ride 
at  anchor.     Yarmouth  Roads  are  a  good  example. 


*  Saxon,  from  the  same  root  as  "&wim,"— a  place  which  may  be  swum,  or 
in  which  ships  can  swim. 

t  Minch ;  Gaelic,  mionach,  entrails.  La  Manche  is  perhaps  the  same  word. 


ROADS.     LAGOONS.     ICEBERGS.  119 

The  Downs,  off  the  coast  of  Kent,  one  of  the  most 
important  roads  in  our  seas — though  not  so  called — 
take  their  name  from  the  Dunes  or  sandhills  of  the 
Calais  coast  opposite,  or  perhaps  of  the  Goodwin 
sands. 

209.  Lagoons  are  shallow  pieces  of  water  cut  off 
from  the  sea  or  a  river  by  the  formation  of  a  bank  be- 
tween the  two,  though  still  connected  by  one  or  more 
inlets.  Such  are  the  lagoons  on  the  islands  of  which 
Venice  is  built.  Such,  though  not  so  called,  are  the 
Frische  Haff  and  Kurische  Haff,  in  the  Gurf  of 
Dantzic  in  the  Baltic.  The  name  is  also  given  to  the 
basins  of  still  water  inside  the  atolls  or  round  coral 
islands  of  the  Pacific  (§129).  A  view  of  them  is  given 
in  the  Primer  of  Physical  Geography,  p.  101. 

The  shallow  basin  at  the  south  end  of  the  Dead 
Sea  is  known  as  the  lagoon. 

210.  Icebergs  are  masses  of  fresh -water  ice, 
broken  off  from  the  points  of  glaciers,  and  set  floating 
in  the  sea.  The  glaciers  of  the  Arctic  regions  are 
formed  in  the  valleys  and  creeks  of  Greenland,  and 
are  of  immense  width,  and  often  many  hundred  feet 
in  thickness.  These  push  slowly  down  until  they 
reach  the  sea,  and  project  into  it,  sometimes  as  much 
as  three  miles.  By  the  gradual  working  of  the 
waves  and  the  tide  up  and  down,  large  pieces  are 
broken  off,  and  being  lighter  than  water,  float 
away.  The  icebergs  in  the  Antarctic  Ocean  are  built 
up  in  thin  horizontal  strata,  of  about  a  foot  thick 
at  the  top  of  the  berg,  compressed  to  2  or  3  inches 
at  the  water-line.  Whether  they  are  formed  by  glaciers, 
as  in  the  Arctic  Seas,  is  not  yet  ascertained.  There  is 
always  eight  times  as  much,  in  weight,  of  the  iceberg 
below  the  water  as  above  it,  and  when  we  are  told 


GEOGRAPHY. 


of  one  that  floated  200  feet  high  and  3  miles  long, 


Fig.  26. 

we  may  judge  how  enormous  the  whole  mass  was, 
for  there  may  have  been  as  much  as  1,600  feet  of 
ice  under  water.  Another  is  said  to  have  been 
seen  7  miles  long  and  4  wide — large  enough  to  have 
blotted  out  London.  They  are  not  often  so  large, 
but  an  average  size  is  a  mile  long,  half  a  mile  wide, 
and  200  feet  out  of  the  water ;  and  they  come  in 
such  numbers  that  it  was  said  of  one  ship  that  "  she 
could  no  more  go  among  them  than  she  could  sail 
through  th:  city  of  London  if  it  were  half  sunk  in  the 
sea,  with  all  the  houses  tumbling  about  and  butting 
each  other."  By  the  Challenger  (in  S.  lat  63°-65°) 
they  were  seen  in  seventies  and  eighties  at  once. 
When  an  iceberg  has  been  so  much  melted  below  the 
water  as  to  destroy  its  balance,  it  will  turn  over  and 
settle  in  a  new  position. 

.211.  Icebergs  have  great  quantities  ot  large  rocks 
frozen  into  them,  which,  as  the  ice  gradually  melts, 
drop  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.     They  have 


ICEBERGS. 


been  seen  to  carry  blocks  estimated  at  ioo  tons 
weight.  In  this  way  many  of  the  large  round  rocks, 
called  boulders,  which  are  found  in  England  and 
Scotland,  of  different  stone  from  any  in  that  neigh- 
bourhood, have  been  dropped  when  the  country  was 
under  water  and  the  climate  arctic. 

212.  In  the  Northern  Hemisphere,  the  icebergs  which 
come  south,  keep  near  the  coasts  of  Greenland  and 
Newfoundland,  and  though  they  come  as  far  down  as 
N.  lat.  400,  yet  they  are  seldom  or  never  seen  so  far 
south  in  the  open  sea.  The  most  southerly  place  in 
Europe  at  which  a  glacier  comes  down  to  the  sea  is  on 
the  coast  of  Norway,  in  N.  lat.  670.  But  in  the  Southern 
Hemisphere,  so  much  greater  is  the  coldness,  that  on 
the  southern  coast  of  Chili  glaciers  come  down  to  the 
sea  in  lat.  460  40',  or  200  20'  nearer  the  Equator  than 
with  us,  and  the  icebergs  from  the  mass  of  land  or  of 
ice  round  the  South  Pole,  advance  across  the  ocean  as 
far  as  450  and  even  400  S.  lat.,  and  make  navigation 
impossible  south  of  that  line.  At  Kerguelen  and 
Heard  islands,  south-east  of  Africa,  in  the  correspond- 
ing latitude  to  Cornwall  and  Paris,  not  only  do  the 
glaciers  come  down  to  the  water,  but  the  islands  have 
no  vegetation  higher  than  the  Kerguelen  cabbage,  no 
inhabitants,  and  no  animals  but  birds  and  seals. 

213.  Quite  distinct  from  icebergs  is  the  coast-ice, 
or  floe-ice.  This  is  frozen  salt  water,  seldom  more 
than  20  feet  thick,  and  at  that  thickness  would 
float  at  between  2  and  3  feet  out  of  the  water.  It  is 
of  a  dull  colour,  while  the  ice  of  the  bergs  is  a 
beautiful  blue.  True,  in  the  Arctic  Expedition  of  1875 
the  "  ancient  ice  "  of  the  Polar  Sea  was  much  thicker 
than  that  just  named ;  but  this  seems  to  have  arisen 
from  the  heaping  up  of  fragments,  when  the  ice  is 


GEOGRAPHY. 


broken  up  by  the  waves  and  masses  are  forced  one  on 
to  the  top  of  another. 


And  now  I  have  done ;  not  because  I  have  said  all 
there  is  to  say,  but  because  I  have  come  to  the  end  of 
my  pages.     I  have  tried  to  tell  you  three  things  : 

i.  How  maps  are  made,  and  how  they  are  to  be 
understood. 

2.  How  the  land  and  water  are  placed  on  the 

world,  and  how  the  different  countries  are  like 
and  unlike  each  other. 

3.  How  the  separate  parts  or  features  of  the  land 

and  water  are  made  up. 

But  before  we  part  you  must  let  me  give  you  a 
few  words  of  advice.  Don't  be  content  with  know- 
ing your  map,  or  your  globe,  or  your  geography 
book.  The  object  of  them  all  is  to  teach  you  about 
the  earth,  and  they  are  no  use  if  they  don't  do 
that.  Get  into  the  habit  of  looking  at  the  country 
itself,  of  questioning  its  different  parts,  the  moun- 
tains, valleys,  rivers,  roads,  and  finding  out  their  con- 
nection with  one  another,  and  what  they  all  mean 
in  relation  to  ourselves.  And  this  you  will  do  by 
beginning  at  home.  The  most  important  spot  for  us 
all,  in  this  and  many  other  respects,  is  our  own  home. 
Not  only  Europe,  not  only  Great  Britain,  not  only 
England,  but  our  part  of  England.  Now  I  ask  you. 
When  you  go  out  into  the  garden  or  street  do  you 
know  where  the  North  and  South  are?  Roughly 
speaking,  the  South  is  where  the  sun  stands  at  noon. 
Look  up  at  that,  and  then  the  North  is  behind  you, 
the  West  on  your  right,  and  the  East  on  your  left. 
And  now  go  a  step  farther.     What  is  there  to  the 


HABIT  OF  OBSERVING.  123 

South  or  West  ?  As  you  stand  outside  the  house  and 
look  South  what  are  you  looking  towards  ?  What  is  the 
first  place  you  would  come  to  if  you  walked  or  rode  that 
way  ?  the  first  large  town  ?  the  first  village  ?  What 
rivers,  or  streams,  or  railways,  would  you  come  to  ? 
What  sort  of  country  is  it  ?  wooded  or  bare  ?  grass 
or  corn  ?  hilly  or  flat  ?  rounded  or  roughly  broken  ? 
I  doubt  if  you  could  answer  these  questions.  But 
I  would  have  you  try,  because  these  things  are  the 
foundation  of  geography,  and  the  habit  of  questioning 
and  finding  out  is  the  foundation  of  all  knowledge. 
The  very  wind  as  it  blows  in  your  face  prompts 
you  to  question  it  What  frosty  regions  has  the 
North-east  wind  travelled  over,  to  give  it  its  icy  keen- 
ness? Whence  comes  the  South-west  wind  with  its 
moist  softness  ? 

It  is  that  sort  of  inquiry,  begun  at  your  own  centre, 
and  gradually  widening  to  other  countries  and  scenes, 
till  you  know  all  about  them,  which  is  the  useful  part 
of  that  great  science  of  man  and  nature,  of  which 
geography  is  an  important  portion.  Moreover, 
geography  invites  you  to  this,  for  it  touches  on 
almost  everything  high  and  low.  Every  rill  that 
you  see  running  down  a  lane  into  the  road  after  the 
rain,  will  tell  you  something  of  the  nature  of  the 
Ganges,  if  you  look  at  it  properly ;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  no  subject  of  inquiry,  natural  sciences, 
commerce,  history,  religion,  which  is  not  more  or  less 
connected  with  the  form  and  arrangement  of  earth 
and  ocean,  with  mountains,  rivers,  coasts,  or  climate, 
and  which  they  have  not  at  some  time  or  other  mate- 
rially influenced.  We  have  noticed  a  few  instances 
in  the  foregoing  pages.  Keep  your  eyes  open,  and 
you  will  see  others  every  day  of  your  life. 


APPENDIX. 


I.   Measures  of  Length. 


i.  The  knot  (geographical  or  nautical  mile,  one  minute,  or  one 
2i,6oothpart  of  the  earth's  circumference  at  the  Equator)  con- 
tains 2,028  yards,  or  6,084  feet. 

2.  The  English  or  statute  mile  contains  1, 760  yards,  or  5,280 feet. 

3.  The  French  kilometre  contains  1093  "833  yards,  or  328 1  ft.  loin. 

4.  Depths  at  sea  are  measured  by  fathoms,  each  containing  6  ft 

5.  Comparative  table  of  knots  and  statute  miles : — 


Knots. 

Statute  Miles. 

Statute 

Miles. 

Knots. 

I 

I-I52 

I 

•868 

2 

2-304 

2 

1736 

3 

3"457 

3 

2-603 

4 

4-609 

4 

3-47I 

I 

576i 

5 

4  339 

6914 

6 

5-207 

I 

8  066 

7 

6075 

9-218 

8 

6*943 

9 

10-370 

9 

781 1 

10 

"•523 

10 

8-678 

20 

23045 
34-568 

20 

» 7-357 

30 

30 

26-035 

40 

46-091 

40 

34-7I4 

5° 

57613 

5o 

43392 

60 

69-136 

60 

52-071 

70 

80-659 

7o 

60-749 

80 

92-181 

80 

69-428 

90 

103704 

90 

78-106 

IOO 

115-227 

100 

86785 

APPENDIX. 


125 


II. 


Table  of  the  Number  of  Knots  contained  in  a  Degree 
of  Longitude  under  each  Parallel  of  Latitude. 


Parallel 

Length  of 

Parallel 

Length 

'  Parallel 

Length 

of 

Degree 

of 

i        of 

Latitude. 

in  Knots. 

Latitude. 

Degree. 

Latitude. 

Degree. 

Equator 

6o-ooo 

i       30° 

52-004 

6o° 

30-074 

1° 

59 '99 1 

!       31 

51-475 

i      61 

29-161 

2 

59-964 

32 

50-930 

62 

28-240 

3 

59-918 

33 

50-370 

P 

27-310 

4 

59-854 

34 

49-793 

|      64 

26*372 

5 

59-773 

35 

49-202 

65 

25*426 

6 

59-673 

36 

48-596 

66 

24471 

7 

59-556 

37 

47*975 

67 

23*509 

8 

59-419 

38 

47*339 
46-688 

|     68 

22  -540 

9 

59-266 

39 

;  69 

2I*564 

10 

59-094 

.  40 

46-021 

!      70 

20-581 

11 

58-905 

4i 

45-346 

7i 

19*592 

12 

58-697 

42 

44-654 

i      72 

I8-596 

13 

58-472 

i      43 

43-948 

73 

I7-595 
16-588 

H 

58-229 

I      44 

43-229 

74 

15 

57-968 

45 

42-495 

75 

I5-577 

16 

57-690 

;     46 

41750 

76 

14-560 

17 

57-394 

47 

40-992 

11 

I3-539 

18 

57-081 

48 

40-220 

I2-5I4 

19 

56751 

I      49 

39-437 

79 

11-485 

20 

56-403 

!      50 

38-642 

1     80 

IO-452 

21 

56-038 

5' 

37834 

81 

9-416 

22 

55-657 

1      52 

37015 

82 

8*377 

23 

55-258 

i      53 

36-185 

83 

7*366 

24 

54-842 

:     54 

35*343 

84 

6-292 

25 

54-410 

55 

34400 

85 

5-246 

26 

53-962 

56 

33627 

86 

4-199 

27 

53-496 

57 

32-754 

87 

3*i5o 

28 

53015 
52-518 

58 

31-870 

88 

2-IOI 

29 

59 

30-977 

89 

I  050 

30 

52-004 

60 

30-074 

Pole 

o-ooo 

126 


GEOGRAPHY. 


III. 

Table  of  Scales  employed  in  Ordnance  Maps  (See  §  36). 


Natural 

Inches  to  One 

Scale. 

Statute  Mile. 

Class  of  Map. 

ths 

126720 

Plans  of  towns. 

Ti* 

I20- 

Ditto. 

TUHH 

63-36 

Ditto. 

TlfW 

6o- 

Ditto. 

TTFT 

36 

Special  maps. 

TsYff 

26-6 

Ditto. 

2o00 

25*344 

Parish  plans.     Cadastral  survey. 

Wtts 

24- 

Special  maps. 

titst) 

12- 

Ditto. 

TBSTnj 

6- 

County  maps.     Reconnaissances. 

TT&T7 

5- 

Indexes. 

"ITsTiT 

4" 

Special  maps. 

TT$T* 

3* 

Indexes.     Reconnaissances  of  roads. 

1  1  1 1  0 

2" 

Special  maps. 

TTTsinF 

I' 

General  map  of  the  United  Kingdom. 

TTSTTtr 

•25 

Special  maps  (4  miles  to  an  inch). 
Ditto          (5  miles  to  an  inch). 

a  1  oHTTir 

"2 

Imuran 

•I 

Index  map      (10  miles  to  an  inch). 

TDOttSOTF 

•03 

Special  maps  (30  miles  to  an  inch). 

In  the  Ordnance  Maps : — 

Turnpike  or  Main  Roads,  if  fenced,  are  represented  by  two  parallel  lines,  a 
thin  and  a  thick,  the  thick  one  being  the  lower,  or  right-hand  one,  ac- 
cording to  position.  Cross  Roads  are  narrower,  and  have  both  sides 
alike,  two  thin  lines.  Footpaths  are  shown  by  a  single  dotted  line,  and 
the  sides  of  all  roads,  where  they  are  not  fenced,  by  dotted  lines. 

Rivers  by  two  lines  not  strictly  parallel,  the  upper  one,  or  the  left-hand  one 
being  thick ;  and  the  two  open  lines  joining  at  last  in  one  black  line. 

Ferries  by  a  single  dotted  line.     Fords  by  two  dotted  lines. 

Railroads  by  thick  parallel  lines,  connected  by  thin  cross  lines. 

Canals  by  two  lines,  a  thick  and  a  thin,  exactly  parallel,  the  thick  line  beinf 
the  upper  one,  or  the  left-hand  one,  according  to  position.  Also  by  the 
locks  and  bridges. 

Bridges. — A  moderate-sized  bridge  is  represented  by  two  parallel  lines  with 
their  ends  bent  outwards ;  smaller  bridges  by  two  small  curves  drawn 
back  to  back ;  the  letters  S,  W,  or  I  are  added  to  show  whether  the 
bridges  are  of  stone,  wood,  or  iron. 

Churches  are  marked  with  a  cross. 

Telegraph  lines  by  short,  thin,  vertical  strokes  to  represent  the  post*. 


CHARLES    DICKENS   AND   EVANS,    CRYSTAL   PALACE    PRESS. 


SCIENCE    PRIMERS. 

Under  the  Joint  Editorship  of  Professors  HUXLEY,  ROSCOE, 
and  BALFOUR  STEWART.     i8mo.     Illustrated,  is.  each. 

INTRODUCTORY.     By  Professor  Huxley,  F.R.S. 
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GEOGRAPHY  OF  THE   OCEANS  AND   OCEANIC    ISLANDS. 
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